Where the pixie dust shines
by J2396
Summary: Two years after his defeat James returns to Neverland having become the famous Captain Hook. He has run out of pixie dust and plans to steal the blue powder from the fairies once again. But to his surprise this time Zarina has prepared herself, and his attack will not end as planed . How would a pirate feel when having the size of a fairy?
1. A worthy adversary

**Welcome to my first story, Where the pixie dust shines! Like I just said this is the first time I write a fanfic, so I hope you enjoy it. Also, I'll be glad to receive your reviews if you have any, it sure will help me. Have fun!**

**Where the pixie dust shines**

...

_"James?" Zarina's voice trembled, but the pirate recognized its jingle even before seeing her. He loved the surprise and fear on the fairy's face, but not so the expression which quickly replaced the previous, when she saw that James was trapped. Fun. Zarina was laughing at him for having fallen into her trap._

...

A worthy adversary

There it was. The second star emerged from the clouds, right in front of them. He had not seen it for more than one year, although he could not say that he had missed it. The booty they had gathered was heaped in the hold, witness to all the adventures they had lived, and if it had not been for the pixie dust, they wouldn't have had any need to return. When Zarina and her friends had left with the blue powder and their old boat, the pirates had had no choice but to conform with the fairy dust they had left in the Skull Cave. Luckily, he, who was very clever, had saved a little blue powder just in case, and that had allowed them to spend a year hacking on Mainland. But now that they had spent up to the last drop of these reserves, they had no choice but to return.

"Starboard!", shouted Captain Hook to his crew. "Second star to the right, have you already forgotten it, morons?"

Thus was, Captain Hook and his crew returned to Neverland. And they did not do it as a last resort, but as a first step in an elaborate plan that James had been plotting. Becoming the captain again had been difficult, but thanks to his wit now he had a greater boat and new crew members, which with no doubt would be very useful for what he had in mind. His new nickname, referring to the only weapon that had been saved after the confrontation with the fairies, he didn't dislike it at all, and he would not let any of his subordinates call him James, now that name belonged to the past. In addition, he kept a very special goal for his hook.

As they approached the star, a blinding light filled with flashes of colors wrapped them and they suddenly found themselves floating above the sea of Neverland. He could see the island to the East, and a little further West he saw his hiding-place, the Island of the Skull.

"Laaaand in sight!", shouted the watcher.

"Sirs, we are home!", exclaimed the captain. The clamor of the pirates invaded all the boat while the ship landed inside the cave. Seeing the tree at the top of the central rock, useless without the blue powder, revived his rage toward the fairies, but remembering his great plan he regained his composure quickly. He was certainly a genius, but the others had to do their role properly. So the first thing he made when the boat was moored and in order was to gather everyone together on the boat's desk.

"Gentlemen, the first step of the plan, returning to Neverland without being shorts in fairy dust, has been a success. Luckily, apart from the dust we also stole some very useful knowledge from that fairy." The shouts and laughter of the crew made it clear that they were in agreement. "But those fairies", resumed the captain, interrupting them, "can still be useful to us! We will not let them monopolize all that dust, just because they feel so important. So tomorrow, when it gets dark, we will go to the Hollow and rob all their dust!"

The crew's cheers resonated so strongly in the cave that the captain had to order them to shut up, fearing that the fairies would hear them. That night they transported their treasures to the rock and made a big party. The food and wine were in abundance, but the captain did not feast. Locked up in his cabin, James looked at the tiny sword he held in his hands, self-absorbed. Indeed, what excited him the most wasn't the desire to own the blue powder again, but the possibility of meeting Zarina. Because there was nothing with which Captain Hook enjoyed himself more than struggling with a worthy adversary.


	2. A light to the West

A light to the West

The day woke up sunny and in Pixie Hollow there was plenty of work. Autumn had come. Everyone was busy with the preparations, and all the fairies waited anxiously their turn to go to Mainland. All the fairies except the tinkers, of course, although they were not missing work. The tinkers and the dust fairies. Because, with the exception of some few, like Terrence, light keepers had to guard it and, therefore, they were not traveling. Some fairies might have preferred to break with routine, but not Zarina. That's because the alchemist of the dust loved to try out her boldest experiments when nobody was around. And although nearly all her friends were travelling back and forward, she still had Tinkerbell.

After her return two years ago, her friends had received her with the greatest enthusiasm ever, and after the spectacle of the Four Seasons Festival, everyone had been fascinated with her mastery of fairy dust. She had even discovered, to her surprise, that Fairy Gary had felt very guilty after her departure. As a reward for having dismissed her back then, he wore pants a whole week, as he had sworn that he would do if someone discovered pink powder. Since then the two of them had become close friends, and he had offered to create a new section within the guardians of dust, so Zarina had help in her experiments and could transmit her knowledge to the other fairies. That's how she became, under the supervision of Fairy Gary, the first alchemist in the history of fairies.

Zarina was, and she was very happy to be so, the director of the fairy dust factory that Queen Clarion had commanded to install next to the mill. All those guardians of dust who felt curiosity and passion for Alchemy and had talent in it were invited to work in the factory as Zarina's helpers. At first she had only had four workers, but little by little, with the arrival of new fairy, the number of alchemists had been increasing and different colored fairy dust had gone from being a curiosity to being a very useful tool. The factory consisted of three parts: the main hall, where colored powder was made, the warehouse, where it was kept, and the library, where all the books in which Zarina had been documenting her findings were, and where anyone could find information about the operation of each color, obtaining, or its potential. But where Zarina really spent most of her time, and where she carried out her experiments, was in the new house-laboratory that Tinkerbell, together with other tinkers, had built for her as a welcome gift.

In the top of the Pixie Dust Tree, above a large platform of walnut, stood the new home of Zarina. A path scratched into one of the branches leaded to the entrance of the house, which consisted of two rooms. The first one, which gave to the road, was the house itself, with bed, kitchen, bathroom and everything else. And the second was a large laboratory equipped with rare tools and the most valued books of the alchemist, where only the most trusted helpers could work. This last room opened to the backyard of the house, which was also accessed following a path that surrounded the building and connected to the main road. The courtyard was actually the rest of the platform of walnut, one large terrace two times greater in surface than the house and surrounded by a beautiful railing Zarina herself had grown. There was where she liked to conduct her experiments, and it was very practical if she needed the collaboration of other fairies or an animal, since it was spacious and you could access it flying. But if the terrace was Zarina's favorite place, it was not due to its practicality, but because of the views. There was no higher point in all Pixie Hollow than the platform at the top of the Great Tree. And there was nothing Zarina liked more than sitting on the railing and watching what couldn't be watched from any other point: the sea .

Yes, Zarina missed the sea. The nostalgia she felt was nothing compared to how much she had missed her friends during her year of absence, but she could not help but remember how much fun she had had when she was still captain, when she still believed that the pirates were her friends. Whenever she remembered her life aboard the pirate ship, she felt a weight on the chest that grieved it and when, despite her efforts, she could not stop thinking about the betrayal of those who had believed her friends, the sadness was so great that it was able to turn off the joy of the most exciting discovery. Unfortunately, she had not found another explanation for this sadness than the fact that she missed them. After all, her encounter with the pirates had been like a salvation to her, and with them she had felt understood for the first time in her life. And yet, the great reception her return had received, and seeing the joy reflected in the faces of fairies and sparrow men for having her with them again, had made she understand that this was her place. With the pass of time she had learned to see the positive side of her pirate experience and, as weird as it may seem, contemplating the sea did not grieve her with bad memories anymore, instead it gave her a great feeling of calm and peace.

That morning Zarina had woke up earlier, almost at night. She had dreamed that she was sailing with her companions above London, singing and dancing a pirate song. Although the dream had been cheerful, it did not seem so to her once she was awake. It was the first time that James appeared in her dreams in this way. She had already dreamed with him before, but the now captain had never figured as one of her friends. In fact, whenever she could she avoided remembering her second on board because it made her feel stupid and furious, a combination which more than once had led her to blow some of her experiments. Also that day she had work to do, and she had to finish it before her guests arrived, so she decided not to think about it.

The storm fairies had asked her to invent a powder which could produce thunder and lightning, and one of them would come that morning to practice. She had also asked Tinkerbell to bring a catapult to test the new powder. A few months ago she had discovered that by mixing different colors you could obtain not only dusts with specific powers, like the one she had used to wake the fairies after putting them to sleep with poppy pollen, but also powders with other talents, like the snow powder if you mixed purple dust(wind) and turquoise dust(water). This time she was going to try mixing purple and orange, with the hope of getting the talent of the storm. Since the accident with the blue powder that fell into the bowl of dust from wind, which's consequences are better not mentioned, Zarina had no blue dust in her laboratory, so she had to go pick some whenever she wanted to do an experiment. She dressed, picked up her bag with a box to save the blue powder and prepared to get off.

Despite having a beautiful staircase leading to the entrance of the shaft, Zarina had found a funnier technique to descend. She climbed on top of the railing that gave to the inside of the tree and jumped. She had discovered that, on that point, there wasn't any branch which stood in the way of the free fall to the central room, where the powder to fly was created. She loved free fall, and it was much faster than the stairs. Arriving at the dust source, she only had to lean right so that her wings were sprinkled with yellow dust, and she could already fly. Normally Terrence was there to greet her, or her friends if they were receiving their ration, but it was still too early in the morning.

Getting a piece of blue dust didn't cost anything, because she knew the combination of the box, but she left a note to the Fairy Gary just in case, knowing that he did not like surprises. Then she flew back to her home and began to prepare it all. She would need the help of a fairy of storm, so she decided to prepare it all in the terrace, because the idea of having rays in her laboratory didn't seem safe. She left the box with the speck on the side of the table and set out two bowls besides it, one with purple powder and another with orange powder, and a larger bowl to mix them. She still had some time left so she sat on the railing to watch the sea.

It had been a quiet night and the surface of the water was calm. The sun had not risen but the stars where starting to banish on the horizon. And then she noticed something unusual. To the West from where they were she thought she saw a little light that was blinking, like a fire. _"That's impossible"_, she thought, _"because the only island that is towards the West is..."_. She did not need to finish the sentence to realize that a light on the Skull Island could only mean one thing, a bad thing. It had been more than one year since no one had seen light in the cave, so it was impossible for them to be there… no? The sun was beginning to look out over the sea and soon everyone would wake up. What should she do?

"Hi Zarina!" The call startled her so much that she fell from the balustrade and if it had not been for her trip to the source of pixie dust, she would have had problems. She turned to look at the terrace still scared, but luckily it was only Tinkerbell. "I thought I would come earlier because I have to fit the catapult and all..."

"Hi Tinkerbell", Zarina answered turning to sit as if nothing. "Sounds good, but where are the pieces?" A funny smile appeared on the fairy's face, and suddenly a great wind arose and Vidia appeared on the other side of the railing holding a huge whirlpool in top of which where the pieces.

"Bringing material to your home is not easy, you know?", said the fairy of the wind with a mocking smile.

"Luckily the purple powder that I provided to you seems to work", said the alchemist, funny.

While Vidia brought the rest of the material, Tinkerbell put hands to work. Zarina returned to observe the horizon, but the mist had begun to rise and she couldn't distinguish any light, or any island.

"Zarina, are you listening? Is there something in the sea?"

The voice of Tinkerbell awoke her to reality. "No, it's nothing, sorry. What did you say?" Her friends watched her expectantly, but they did not give it importance.

"I was asking, why do you need a catapult in this experiment?."

An enigmatic smile appeared on her face.

"You'll see."


	3. Beams, wind and pixie dust

Beams, wind and pixie dust

Throughout the morning rays kept crossing the sky of the Hollow. No fairy needed to ask to know from where such show could come, it was not the first time their alchemist tried out risky experiments. And of course, no one dared to climb that day to the top of the Great Tree, they also remembered the great tornado that one day had appeared in the laboratory by surprise and had almost swept the field of sunflowers. Therefore, Queen Clarion had it difficult to find a watcher to go up and confirm what her subjects had informed. However she finally found one, friends of Fawn, who knew Zarina from long ago. Because it turns out that our alchemist was feared, but also loved, by many fairies due to her rather frequent accidents. Only those who knew her knew that she would be incapable of causing damage to anyone. The watcher climbed up the stairs, given that the sky was not a safe place, and followed the trail surrounding the house until he reached the courtyard. What he saw left him stunned.

A fairy of the storm, which, if he remembered right, was the companion of Rumble in the Pixie Hollow Games, was throwing rays to a great bowl situated on the centre of the terrace, at the same time that Zarina, dressed in a strange costume that seemed made of rubber and pads, dropped fragments of blue powder in the container. However, every time rays landed in the bowl, they were thrown back and the two fairies had to quickly cover themselves. Whenever this happened Zarina had to refill the bowl with two different colored powders. On the other side of the courtyard Tinkerbell and Vidia watched the show sitting on a... catapult?! The poor sparrow man did not understand anything of what he was seeing and was unable to remember why had he gone to such a crazy place.

After a while, Tinkerbell, who had been mulling over the whole experiment, interrupted her two friends: she had an idea to succeed in their experiment. It was then that Vidia noticed the guest that was watching them half-hidden behind the house.

"Hey, what is he doing here?" asked the fairy, inquisitive as always. The sparrow man, finally reacting, cleared his throat and, trying not to become further confused by the nonsense that the terrace had become, informed them that Queen Clarion wanted to know if they had seen anything abnormal that night, because some fairies had told her that they had seen a comet descend from the second start to the west. Three of the fairies looked at each other with surprise, but Zarina seemed to know something, because she immediately expressed concern.

"I have not seen anything tonight," she began "but this morning at dawn I thought I saw a light that shone in the Cave of the Skull." Astonishment and concern crossed the courtyard. Those weren't good news.

"I guess that as soon as I communicate this to the Queen she'll send an expedition to the island. When we have more information we'll let you know. Meanwhile you can continue... with whatever you are testing." And he left rapidly, they did not know if to report to the queen or to escape from the experiment.

The three friends stood in silence and occasionally gave a quick look to Zarina, who had climbed on top of the railing and looked at the horizon, thoughtful.

"Well, Tinkerbell," said Glimmer to break the silence "what was your fantastic idea?"

"Oh, Yes." answered the tinker. "I have thought that if Vidia were to do a wind tunnel which leaded to the bowl, and we threw the blue powder there, you could easily hit it with the ray, and thus the two would react before coming in contact with the powder mixture."

"Ah no!" exclaimed Vidia. "Don't make participate in your foolish experiments. I'm not gonna…"

"It could work" interrupted Zarina. She stopped looking at the sea and joined her teammates. "Come on Vidia, we can't do it if it isn't you." Vidia was very proud of her talent, and Zarina knew it, she was also very clever.

"Okay, okay, if you insist..." Her friends laughed and returned to work. Glimmer prepared herself while Vidia created the tunnel. It amused her to throw beams and, since the Pixie Hollow Games, she had become a good friend of the group, so that morning was being fantastic to her, despite all the failures they had already achieved. The first time they tried it, the force of the lightning was too much for the tornado, which broke causing the beam to deflect and burn the platform. Nobody dared to accuse Vidia, but they didn't need to do so because she immediately had another wind tunnel ready. Her pride wasn't going to let the experiment fail because of her.

Attempts occurred all morning but the commitment of the fairies did not diminish. There was a moment in which they doubted if it would work, but then Tinkerbell went to find them food and after the break, with renewed energy, it felt as if they were capable of everything. Thus the forty third attempt arrived. This time they had decided that Zarina would drop the speck directly in the bowl, from a certain height, while Vidia pointed to it with the torndo and Glimmer threw the beam within the tunnel. They already had everything prepared when they heard a flapping of wings and one of the emissaries of the queen suddenly appeared on the terrace, she seemed very concerned.

"Pirates! The pirates are back!"

At that moment the speck of blue dust slid from between Zarina's fingers, while the ray escaped from Glimmer's hands. The impact occurred as planned and a blinding light followed by a terrible thunder filled the yard . When the thunder passed and everyone opened their eyes, they were amazed to see how, in the middle of the great bowl, grey powder began to emerge and how the color covered every speck. They had obtained powder of storm, but no one seemed to be happy.


	4. Full moon night

**Hi there! I know I'm publishing this chapter a little bit later than usual, truth is I had a little bit of difficulty (here comes a spoiler so if you don't want to read it jump to the "By the way")inserting the paragraph I put on the start of the story, but here you have it! **

**By the way, my holidays are coming to an end so from now on things will get a little slower, although I promise I'll do my best to update as soon as I can. Things will get more interesting from now on, so I hope you guys enjoy it! And please keep the reviews coming, I try to follow all your advices, and they really help me to continue writing :)**

Full moon night

Night was falling when the boat full of pirates left the cave, only the full moon watching them. They all had their swords and pistols, but they had something else: poppy pollen. The captain remembered how handy it had been when Zarina stole the blue powder for the first time, and had decided that it could be useful. They carried a lamp but when they were approaching the beach they put it out, although the mist hid them. They had spent all day reviewing the plan so that nobody committed any mistake because, although the fairies were stupid, there was no need to give them quarter. They moored the boat to a palm tree and two sailors were left standing guard, while the rest moved quietly towards the Hollow.

Throughout the year they had spent together, James had obtained a lot of information from Zarina, pretending to get interested in the life she had carried before disappearing. Thanks to that he knew how to reach the tree and also where the powder was. He did not know the combination of the case where it was kept, but he could always steal the box and then break it. "_How naïve can fairies be_," thought the pirate as they approached the Hollow. "_She didn't even realize she had given me too much information until it was too late_ ".

With a gesture he indicated the others to hide. They retreated behind some tall grass and saw a fairy appear on the road to their right. It seemed as if she was searching something, or rather as if she was guarding the Hollow. Zarina had never told him that fairies had guards, but it could be and, moreover, they were prepared. He slipped his hand into the left pocket of his red jacket and took out a bit of pollen. When the fairy was passing right before him he blew, and a pink cloud enveloped the tiny creature, who fell to the ground, asleep. They repeated this with six more fairies, until they were able to get to the Forest of Spring. They were there when the captain suddenly realized that the sky had been covered with clouds. Leaving the cave he had seen the stars, but now the sky was black as if a storm was approaching. This discovery, along with the fact that there were so many fairies awake at that hour, began to make him suspect, but he didn't have time to anticipate what happened next.

Soon a beam fell just before them, and this one was followed by many others. They fell on top of them as a barrage of flashes, burning them and keeping them away from the Great Tree. The pirates ran up and down between bewilderment and confusion, and pushed each other to be the first ones to arrive at the boat. Far away from the forest they couldn't see anything because of the smoke the burns of the rays had raised.

"Stupid cowards, return here!" shouted Captain Hook to his crew, which was fleeing like a band of hens. "They are nothing more than fairies!" but he also was forced to take shelter from the storm and hid under a tree. The lightning followed the other pirates, forcing them to return to the bay where the boat had been docked. When the crying of his subordinates and the roar of thunder ceased to be heard, fairies began to peek out of the smoke. The water fairies put out the remains of a fire and the garden fairies healed flowers and trees, but they all seemed very happy for having scared all the pirates. All but one.

Captain Hook was hiding behind the tree, and watched warily the fairies who were gathering, planning his next move. It was clear that he couldn't steal the blue powder without being seen, but perhaps he could find a way to fix it. The solution soon arose. Queen Clarion appeared next to her subjects and congratulated them for the success of the operation. He knew it was her because that was how Zarina had described her, a fairy a little taller than the others and shimmering as if made of gold dust. Hearing their conversations he guessed they had been waiting for them since the afternoon, so surely they had seen them arrive the night before. No one had noticed his presence, and he thought that using the very Queen as a hostage could provide him control over all the fairies. He took advantage that the Queen was talking to some other fairies, and lunged to her.

All the fairies screamed when they understood that Clarion was in danger, and they wouldn't have been able to save her if a certain garden fairy, who knew Hook very well, hadn't been replanting flowers there at the moment. Rosetta reacted quickly and the branches of the tree where he had been hiding seconds before wrapped the pirate and tied him to the trunk. He tried to escape but they were too strong.

"Look who we've got here!" said the fairy with a mocking tone. "Didn't you have enough last time? I think Zarina and Tinkerbell gave you a good lesson."

"That's why I came, Miss," he answered with a smile full of rage "I think that you and your friends have something that belongs to me."

The fairy did not like that last comment, and looked at him with contempt. But, before she could respond, something interrupted her. Another group of fairies was approaching from the Pixie Dust Tree. He could hear them laugh and comment how well they have scarred the pirates.

"You see? I told you the catapults wouldn't fail. This grey powder is truly magnificent Zarina, I had never seen..." Tinkerbell suddenly stopped and her face of surprise made the other three fairies who were accompanying her turn around to see what had struck her. The laughter ceased immediately.

"James?" Zarina's voice trembled, but the pirate recognized its jingle even before seeing her. He loved the surprise and fear on the fairy's face, but not so the expression which quickly replaced the previous, when she saw that James was trapped. Fun. Zarina was laughing at him for having fallen into her trap. Fun and satisfaction, that was what her smile transmitted. Of course the captain didn't like this at all, being trapped by those tiny beings again felt ridiculous. But even if he resisted the tree was still holding him firmly.

"Then," said a fairy in a yellow dress that was also around. "you're the Captain Hook which all the pirates were mentioning?" Now he was sure, it was another one of the friends that had helped Zarina last time.

"Thus it is, that's now my name, and my title." added the captain launching a provocative look at Zarina. But she wasn't looking at him. Her pose was now more serious as she approached the Queen.

"Queen Clarion, what are you gonna do with him?" the Queen looked at him long and then spoke to her alchemist.

"I think that you, Zarina, should decide it. You know him better." They all realized that it was the response she had been waiting, but when she turned to him he did not see any trace of amusement in her small face, only seriousness.

"Wait a moment." and she flew to the top of the tree. The fairies who remained gathered at enough distance from him and began to discuss. It was difficult for him to understand what they were saying, with all the jingling, but he could understand that some fairies were not very assured of leaving the verdict in Zarina's hands. "She once worked with him," they said. This satisfied him, in the end Zarina did not have all the trust and understanding of her companions. But then Tinkerbell stopped them.

"Have you forgotten who are we talking about? It's Zarina, guys, do you really think she would betray us? In addition," She said with reproach to the fairies. "if we had not expelled her and we had tried to understand her, she would have had no need to join the pirates, am I wrong?." All those who had protested lowered their gaze and nodded. Queen Clarion smiled.

"Don't worry Tink." everyone became quiet, like little children who had been caught doing a prank. "I know that after what I did it's hard to trust me, but I think they all will change their opinion when they see this." Zarina approached the man and pulled out a handful of light pink powder from a bag in her belt. "Stay prepared Rosetta!", she announced. Then she sprinkled the dust over her victim. The last thing James saw before falling sleep was the look of hatred that glowed in the fairy's eyes for a moment, and he knew that this time a few kind words would not be enough to regain her confidence.


	5. Two months penalty

**Here comes a new chapter! I couldn't wait to write this, what will happen to James now that he's been captured? This chapter is a bit longer tan usual, I hope you like it! **

Two months penalty

When Captain Hook finally opened his eyes, he didn't notice the tree's pressure . Instead, two men were holding him from the arms and dragging him through the forest. However, the landscape that enveloped them was completely different, full of giant flowers and with no trees in sight. The first thing he heard were voices that came from the group of people walking in front of him.

"You could have told me! If I had reacted a few seconds later, the tree's branches would have crushed him!"

"Oh, come on Rosetta! I warned you."

He could not remember any women among his crew members, but there was no doubt that those were female voices. He tried to concentrate, but his head was spinning. He opened his eyes a bit more to take a better look at the girls he had in front, and immediately noticed that something was wrong. All the people surrounding him were floating, they had wings. That couldn't be possible, humans had no wings. It was then when he realized that they were not humans, but fairies. But that didn't make sense, because fairies were much smaller. He was not feeling well, his eyelids were closing, but he tried not to fall asleep, he had to find out what was happening. And suddenly someone approached him with rudeness.

"Hey girls! Wasn't he supposed to be sleeping?" It was one of the fairies who had recognized him, the one with a yellow dress.

Something was wrong, terribly wrong, but he couldn't understand what it was. His vision became blurred, and his body did not obey him. The group of fairies was now looking at him, and one of them approached.

"How strange, he should have slept for at least twelve hours."

It was though recognizing the voice, so he struggled to focus his sight and looked at her. Perhaps It was due to her new size, but it took him a while to recognize her. Zarina. Reality hit him as if the vision of the fairy was the key he needed to connect the information. The fairies had not grown, he was smaller. All around him things started to make sense: giant flowers, the trees he couldn't see because they were too far away... His head was not able to cover so much information. Zarina was taking out something very similar to the poppy's pollen from her belt. He tried to escape but the two sparrow men carrying him were holding him strongly.

"This will help you sleep.", said his adversary with sarcasm as she blew the dust from her hand. For the first time fear took hold of him, but he was too terrified to react.

Darkness engulfed him slowly, as Zarina walked away.

…

When he opened his eyes again, day had come. First thing he saw was the ceiling of the room where he was. It was gray, as polished stone, so he guessed that he was in a cave. The light entered from the wall that was at his feet, where the door which illuminated the room would be. He tried to stand and was surprised to see that it wasn't too difficult, he didn't even get sick. The leaves that had served him as a blanket slipped and fell to the ground. He picked one up and observed it carefully. It was almost as high as him. So it had not been a dream. Now that his mind was clearer and he was no longer scared, he started analyzing the situation. Last thing he remembered was that two sparrow men had dragged him by the Spring's Forest and before that he remembered that fairies had tied him to a tree and Zarina had sprinkled him with some powder. It had had to be the powder. That damn fairy had turned him into a dwarf. After inspecting his back he found with relief that he had no wings, so he had only become smaller. Well, that was not an advantage, because he was as small as the fairies but could not fly like them, but yet he preferred it than to be transformed into one of those ridiculous creatures.

In the room where he was, he was starting to be sure that it was a prison in miniature, there was only the bed where he had been laying, and at the door of the cave there was a fence with strong bars blocking the passage, so there was no way to escape. He returned to sit and tried to think, but the noise coming from outside distracted him. The laughter and conversations of the fairies and the noise of chopping tools could be heard. Where was he?

"Hey Bubble! I think our guest has finally woken up." Two sparrow men who were at the gate watched him curiously. One was tall and corpulent with black hair, and the other thin and brown-haired.

"Wow, I think you're right Clank. We should notify the others." And the two walked away quickly before he had time to ask them anything.

He approached cautiously the gate and looked outside. The road that passed in front of the cave went down to an esplanade that had below, where sparrow men and fairies with green dresses worked with baskets and buckets. There was no trace of fairies dressed with flowers or brown outfits like Zarina's.

Before he could find out anything else, he heard how a group of fairies approached fluttering from the right of the road. In the front was Zarina, preceded by the friends who had helped her escape the ship last time.

"So, Hook, do you like your prison? We have built it especially for you." Said Tinkerbell.

"James," said Zarina addressing to him. "The Queen has something to offer you. If you follow us to the tree without causing problems we'll let you walk by your own foot."

For a moment James didn't know what to say, because he had not heard the question. Seeing Zarina yesterday had already excited him, but this was a completely different feeling. The joy of the night before had been due to the excitement of having an adversary to fight once again and seeing the confusion his vision caused to her. But now that the two had the same size, all those feelings that he had been able to despise back when he was her second in command were returning to him ten times stronger, stunning him. In addition, was he mistaken or her beauty had increased in the two years he had not seen her? Maybe it was because of her new look? Then he toss those thoughts out of his mind. What the heck was with him? He couldn't let a mere fairy distract him only because they now had the same size. On the contrary, he had to make she feel confused if he wanted to get out of there.

"It's been a long time since somebody actually called me James." He responded smiling slyly. He didn't like having to take orders from a fairy once again, but she held a sachet of pink powder in her hand, so he had no other choice. "Okay, I'll be good." And he ended with a reverence.

Zarina sighed with resignation and picked up the keys from her belt, which opened the gate. They took out the captain and tied a rope to his hands with which Fawn hold him while they returned back to the tree. When they met with other fairies, they looked at him and after muttering something between them they headed to the tree quickly.

When the friends arrived at the powder room bringing the prisoner, all the fairies had already gathered. Even some winter fairies where there accompanying Lord Milori, who had also been notified. Iridessa unleashed the pirate and Zarina beckoned him to accompany her to the center of the hall, where the Queen was.

"Welcome to the Pixie Hollow Tree, Captain Hook.", greeted the Queen. "You have been called because we have already decided which should be your fate." Things did not sound good for the captain. "Zarina says that she'll need at least two months to return you to your original size, since she needs the pollen of a flower that only blooms in winter. Anyway, returning you to your size right now would be too risky for us."

James noticed he was beginning to sweat. This could not be happening to him, two months was too long.

"Therefore" continued Clarion. "starting tomorrow you'll work in the Hollow helping the fairies. You'll sleep in the prison that the tinkers built you last night and you'll always be guarded when you are outside of it."

Rage and fear were dancing inside of him. The other pirates could not leave without the fairy dust, but in two months they could perfectly attack the Hollow again, or even choose a new captain.

"When winter arrives" warned the Queen. "we will discuss if we return you to your size again. Zarina has offered to keep an eye on you until then, but since she works with pixie dust and she can't leave her job for so long, her friends have decided to take turns to help her."

The captain cursed his luck. Zarina was indeed wiser than he had thought, and had ensured that all the fairies who would supervise him knew him well enough so that they wouldn't be deceived by him.

"Of course" said the fairy to finish "any suspicious act you make will result in your immediate incarceration 24 hours a day."

It was not necessary to tell him. Trying anything would be too risky while he was still small. If he ever cheated them, he would ensure that they didn't notice it.

"Finally," said Clarion to her minions. "Zarina has asked me to remind you all that you must be careful when speaking with the prisoner, because he is a very skillful trickster. So I advise you not to give him any kind of information, as harmless as it may seem to you. If possible, except his guards, abstain completely of speaking with him and do not forget that, although small, he is still a pirate."

The fear caused in the present by this last word did not console Hook. Not only would he be guarded by the fairies which hated him the most, but he would also be isolated from everyone else. No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't find a way to escape from there, not to mention escaping with the blue powder. Anyway, it was clear that the first step was to win the Queen's trust, the only one who could offer him clemency and also did not know him, so he bowed politely to show that he accepted the conditions that had been presented to him. The Queen returned the salute and turned around while the other fairies came back to tie him and started pulling him back to the cell. But Zarina stopped her.

"Queen Clarion! Can I speak to you for a moment?"

"Of course Zarina, come with me." And the two of them walked down a hallway in the other side of the room. James could not help but wonder what had Zarina to say to the Queen, it gave him the chills. During the speech of Clarion he had noticed that his new guardian did not agree with the decision spoken by the Queen. But the other fairies pulled him towards the exit so he let it be for now and started paying attention to the conversation that Tinkerbell and the others were keeping.

"Poor Zarina" lamented Rosetta. "No wonder she protest, if I were in her place I also wouldn't want to see him around the Hollow." She said looking at him with contempt.

"I think the Queen has gone mad."

"Vidia!", exclaimed the others

"But she's right girls." Said Iridessa, supporting her. "You have to admit that having a pirate in the Hollow for two months is too dangerous."

"I'm sure she has some good reason." Said Silvermist.

"Yes.", answered Tink. "Queen Clarion is wise, I'm sure she knows what she's doing."

Fawn was the only one who did not speak, she just looked at them as if the conversation had lost interest to her, or she didn't know in which side she should be. None of them did the minimum case to Hook, with the exception of some worried or uncomfortable glances. When they left him in the cave they didn't even say anything threatening to him. It was as if he was no longer dangerous to them, and that angered him. They would see what he was capable of doing! But how? He laid on the bed and looked at the ceiling. By the light he deduced that it was still afternoon. He did not know how to analyze what was happening to him, and he was beginning to get hungry. Would the fairies bring him something to eat?

You didn't need to be as smart as him to guess that if he didn't find a way to escape, those two months would be unbearable.


	6. Zarina's decision

Zarina's decision

The night went on inchmeal. The hours crept slowly and heavily and turned every minute in a drab and hopeless eternity. Lying on the floor of her terrace, Zarina watched the night sky in silence. The moon lit up the Hollow like the sun on a cloudy day, the light made the stars pale. But Zarina wasn't there to contemplate the moon. She couldn't sleep. The idea of having James just a few meters away from her home terrified her.

She had tried to sleep, but whenever she closed her eyes she could not help thinking that she would have to live two months with him and not only that, but she would also have to watch him. No one had asked her, but she needed to do it to feel safe. She knew that her friends would help her, and everyone in the hollow was now on her side, but it was not their betrayal what she feared, but her own. Thousands of times she had imagined what would happen if James and she met again, how she would despise and ignore him, and how she'd make him suffer for what he had done to her. However, she had not been capable of doing all that. The others may have thought she did, but the reality was that seeing James after two years had hurt her more than she could admit.

She had obviously managed to conceal it, but that didn't mean her heart hadn't beaten faster when their eyes had met, and that it had not broken into a thousand pieces when she had once again discovered that the pirate she had loved was nothing more than a fantasy invented by a cruel and ruthless being. Because she had loved him. Perhaps while her adventure had lasted she had never noticed it, but after the betrayal she had realized that what she felt was more than friendship. Because James had treated her with respect, had listened to her, had been interested in her problems, and had shared his with her. Thinking that all that had been a lie hurt, and in the deeps of her heart remained the believe that there was some truth to all this farce. That was the bad thing hope had, that it was not put out no matter how many storms drowned it. No, what scared Zarina wasn't the betrayal of others, but to be betrayed by her own feelings.

That's why she had tried to convince the Queen to return Hook to the sea, far away from the Hollow. But Clarion had not listened to it.

"Your majesty" had said Zarina that evening "I know that you think that it is risky to immediately release James, but you don't know how dangerous that man can be. I worked with him and I should have realized then that his greed has no limits, and that to get what he wants he would be able to do anything. Don't make the same mistake as me, I beg you."

"But Zarina" had protested the Queen "if I free Hook, he and his pirates will attack the Hollow until they get the blue powder. At least without him their plans of attack will not be as effective."

"Then make a pact with him! I'm sure that if you offered him a bit of blue powder in exchange for his word that he will not return to the Hollow, he would fulfill his promise, and we would have plenty of dust left."

"And how do we get him back to his size? What about the pollen of the winter flower that you need?"

"It doesn't matter! We will travel to the Winter Woods with a garden fairy and she will make some bloom for me."

The Queen spent some time thinking, but she ultimately cast the idea aside.

"And who would ensure us that once released he would not attack us? Why should he fulfill the promise made to the fairies, when he considers us inferiors? In addition, the flowers you need indicate the arrival of winter and are of vital importance. We can not disturb the balance of the stations at whim, we could cause another freeze."

"But..." protested the fairy.

"Enough is enough! Captain Hook will stay here until we find a more secure way of releasing him, there's nothing more to talk. The alternative is too risky." Seeing Zarina's concern, Clarion tried to console her. "I know that you have fear, and that you feel confused right now, but it's the best. Perhaps James is truly an evil, but who knows, living here might help him see things in another way. Think that sometimes even the worst people deserve a second chance. Without going any further, you yourself were allowed to return although you had been willing to leave us without blue powder."

Zarina had failed to respond to that. Were she and James so similar? In the end, they both had betrayed people close to them to obtain what they wanted. Could James improve like she had? But then the image of the pirate throwing her to the sea so she drowned came to her mind. No, James would not change, because his betrayal was not because of sadness and despair, but because of greed and cruelty. He had enjoyed hurting her, something that she never would have done, and had deceived her without mercy, when she had never intended to lie to anyone.

But Zarina did not want his mercy, she didn't need it anymore. And while she could not avoid being in love with him, she could always enter the game. If he could be charming, then she could be twice as adorable. Sooner or later James would end up trying something and then she would be there to catch him and show everyone that she was right and that the pirate could not remain among them.

That's what the fairy was thinking as she bid farewell to the moon and returned home, but in the bottom of her heart she was still hoping that the chance to prove that she was right never came. Unfortunately, there were still two months before the winter flowers opened, time enough to tempt a pirate.


	7. First job

First job

A few hits in the grid woke him up. He had only slept a few hours so the sun had not disturbed his sleep, and when the fairies appeared at his door he was still wrapped in the leaves of his bed. The sun that strained between the bars hurt his eyes and he could not distinguish the fairy accompanying Zarina.

"James, get up. Today you'll work with the water fairies."

He still wasn't used to hearing the voices of the fairies instead of the tinkling. Also, he didn't like the tone of superiority which Zarina used. He had spent the night trying to reorganize the information that was available and in the end he had only concluded that for the moment it would be best to obey the fairies, hopping that he would come up with some plan. That day he was planning to only observe the fairies, but the lack of sleep put him in a bad mood and it cost him a lot not respond to Zarina with sarcastic or offensive comments.

He left his red jacket and his hat in the cell. They were unpractical to move through the world of fairies and without them he gave more of a harmless image. He didn't understand how it was that his clothing had also shrunk, but he guessed it was the work of the same powders Zarina had used with him. His hook and his sword were nowhere to be found since the first time he had woken up, the fairies must had taken them.

This time they didn't tie his hands, it wasn't necessary. They only stood at his sides and leaded him to the river, where the water fairies worked. The fairy who had gone to search him together with Zarina was Silvermist, as expected. She met with one of the sparrow men who watched them with curiosity, while Zarina stayed with him. She didn't take her eyes off him, but she didn't intend to speak either.

"Okay, Stream says you can start by working at the dam", said Silvermist turning again towards them and beckoning him to come closer.

They put him on a leaf they had put on the water as a raft and Stream and she settled back to guide the makeshift boat down the river.

"Good luck Silver, I'll come back later to see how is it going!", called Zarina from the shore while they moved away.

"Don't worry!", answered her friend. "We'll keep him busy."

"She's not coming?", asked Hook.

"Oh, no. She has work to do at the factory."

For some reason the news disappointed him, but on second thought, her friend of the water seemed easier to deceive, so it was alright. They arrived to a small lake that began at the foot of a waterfall. Some water fairies and a lot of tinkers were working in the cascade, which was nothing more than a low dam.

"Tink cannot come to help us", explained Silvermist, "because yesterday she had to go to the Winter Woods, but she told us that humans are usually good at constructing, so we thought that you could lend us a hand."

"We need a waterfall so that salmon can practice jumping upstream", added Stream, "and we have not found any large enough."

"So Tink thought we could build one ourselves." said the fairy, funny.

"What a stupidity." Hook replied with contempt. He didn't care about the problems of the fairies and being made to work on a dam so that some stupid fish could learn to jump irritated him.

So that fairies could work in the waterfall, the tinkers had built a temporary dam so water didn't flood it, and that's where they found Clank and Bubble.

"Good morning Silver!" said the last one. "What brings you here? I thought you were taking care of the spider webs up the river."

"Oh, I'll go back to it immediately, but first I had to bring the pirate, he'll stay here to help."

The faces of surprise and terror of the two sparrow men were in part satisfactory.

"Bu... bu...but Silver! You can't leave the pirate without supervision, what if he attacks us? And if he runs away?! And if he sinks the dam?!" The idea did not displease James.

"Come on guys," gladly replied the fairy "that's why you are here. I'm leaving him in your care."

"Whaaaat?!" exclaimed the two sparrow men at the same time. But Silvermist was already flying away.

"I'll return at noon, have a good time together!"

Clank and Bubble's faces were pretty funny, but Captain Hook didn't laugh. Now he also had to bear with them.

"Weeeell…" said the skinny one. "what are you good at, this... James..." the face of the pirate told him that he did not like that name "umm... Mr. pirate? This... Captain? Isn't it? Perhaps... Hook? Yes? Better? That's it! Hook, how could you help us?"

"Oh, I know, I know Bubble! He could nail those planks there! He seems to be strong."

"Or he could varnish the wood with waterproof wax!"

"Yes, Yes! Or he could..."

The two friends kept arguing for a good time, but in the end they made him do a bit of everything. That did not bother him, work kept him distracted and prevented the giggles of the fairies and the stupid fish to put him in a bad mood. What he couldn't stand were the two sparrow men. While they were obviously good at what they did, they were also quite clumsy. Clank had even beaten him with a plank and had made him fall into the water. All the fairies had suddenly become quiet and had watched him with fear, as if waiting for a violent reaction by him, but he managed to remain calm and return to work, so it now seemed that the fairies weren't so afraid. Some were even working by his side and kindly talked with him, but they were still very cautious on revealing information of any kind. He obviously behaved like a gentleman, manners first.

Hours passed faster than he thought, and when Silvermist returned, the dam was nearly finished and Clank and Bubble had already no fear of the pirate. On the contrary, James was now victim of their curiosity. They kept asking him where he had learned to build and repair things, if he had build his boat, how had he done it... Soon a great number of fairies sat around him to listen to what the pirate had to tell. When he saw that Silvermist was approaching, James thought that she would get angry at them for having fallen to the pirate's charms, but she merely smiled, visibly happy and satisfied.

"I see that you have almost finished your work." she said to the two tinkers.

"Yeah!" answered Clank "Hook has proved to be a handyman. He would make a fantastic tinker!"

"Hahaha, it seems to me that humans are not born with a gift, Clank, but it's good to know." the fairy turned still fun and told some fairies to approach. "I thought that you would be hungry after so much work, so I asked the cook fairies to make honey cakes for everyone!"

The joy was general, everyone seemed to love sweet meals. "_It must be a fairy's thing_," thought James remembering how Zarina loved cakes. The truth is that they were good, and Hook had not eaten anything since last night, so he took the cake with great pleasure.

"I didn't know that you had cook fairies." He said to one of the fairies with apron which had brought the food.

The silence that followed his sentence surprised him, but he quickly realized what was happening. No fairy dared to explain anything about it, everyone followed the advice of the Queen. Damn, it was difficult to speak without asking anything! But when he went to apologize Silvermist interrupted him.

"Well, yes. You see, not all fairies have gifts for the nature. Like the tinkers, there are also fairies who do other things, like de cook fairies or the musicians."

The serenity with which she replied seemed to calm them and everyone resumed their conversations, but Bubble and Clank seemed concerned.

"But Silvermist, Queen Clarion warned us not to give him any information about the Hollow" hastened to remind Clank.

"I know, I know.", replied Silvermist, "But the poor pirate will need to know some things if he has to live among us. And also, I doubt that honey cakes could be part of an evil plan." she said this last words with an ominous tone to mock her companions, but they did not seem convinced. However in the end everyone forgot the subject and once the break ended they returned to work.

The afternoon passed without more accidents, in part because the attitude of Silver had eased the tension of the other fairies, and in part because James tried not to ask anything else. They ended the artificial waterfall in a short time, and the fairies sit to rest while the water fairies began to bring the salmon. That's when one of Silvermist's friends said:

"Don't you think there's something that stinks?" The others sniffed and everyone nodded, puzzled. There was no skunk there and fairies don't sweat. But pirates do.

"Ah, it must be him!" exclaimed Silvermist pointing to James. "don't worry, all the pirates smell like that. Zarina told me that all her crew members stank, although some were trying to disguise it with aromatic liquids."

These statements offended the Captain greatly.

"Not just pirates smell like this! What happens, my dear young lady, is that a in ship you rarely get the opportunity to wash properly."

He regretted what he said as soon as he let go of the words. Everyone was looking at him with the same idea reflected in their eyes, and Silvermist seemed the most excited of all.

"Then, you just need a good bath!" exclaimed she. James noted: never tell a water fairy that you need a bath. Silvermist rose rapidly and whistled a few salmon to come. Before he had time to protest a few sparrow men seized the pirate by the arms and took him to the leaf that had served him as a boat. Salmon began to pour water onto him with the help of their fins. Then other fairies came with the soap the animal fairies used to wash the inhabitants of the forest and began to rub him without bothering on removing his clothes. He was trying to break away but the fairies kept laughing, they were having fun. They were having fun at his expense. He did his best to calm down, but the strident laughter filled his head. The bubbling fishes, soap in his eyes, and laughter, laughter and laughter of those fairies. Those insufferable and tiny beings who had reduced him, Captain hook, to the size of a mouse! Those stupid, cheesy, insignificant... And he exploded.

"Enoooooough!" yelled he, getting up and moving away of the fairies with a strong push. The cry was heard even in the powder room of the Great Tree, but unfortunately one of the fishes was not listening, because it gave a last fin-beat to the boat, which pushed it under the newly constructed waterfall. The leaf sank and James with it. All the fairies remained silent waiting for the pirate to surface, not daring to approach. Even Silvermist looked at the water, worried. James didn't take too long to come out with great noise and grabbed the leaf once again with difficulties. And then someone burst into laughter.

The laughter of a single fairy flooded the lagoon and everyone looked confused. Who could dare to laugh at Hook in this kind of situation? James looked everywhere but could not see who was laughing, and his anger kept increasing. And then he raised his eyes and saw Zarina, who was just above him hilariously laughing. Truth is that the pirate showed a quite comic picture, holding on the leaf with difficulty, soaked as he was. Some fairies started giggling, and that should have made him furious, but for some reason all the anger was gone. Suddenly the laughter of Zarina captured all his attention, it had him mesmerized. It was the same feeling that he had on the pirate ship whenever he made her laugh or whenever she looked at him with a teasing glance, but multiplied by ten. He did not understand or he didn't want to understand what it meant, but a smile managed to escape his lips.

Clank and Bubble rushed to remove him from the water while Silvermist went to look for a quick fairy to dry him. Zarina landed in front of him, still funny. She then looked at the waterfall she had in front.

"I see that you have at least served as help." she dropped casually.

"Oh yes, Zarina, Hook has been very useful!" exclaimed Bubble to avoid the pirate to rage again.

"Yes, yes," added Clank "he's wonderful at constructing, he would make an excellent tinker!"

"Okay then, as his cell is next to your settlement, from now on he'll help you with the repairing" decided Zarina.

"Great!" answered Bubble enthusiastically. "But first we should ask Fairy Mary for permission, although I think she'll easily agree." Apparently he had already won the confidence of those two and it was only his first day! Things could not go better to him. In addition Zarina didn't seem to hate him anymore. Strange, the night before one of her glances could have struck him down, and however now she seemed in a very good mood. The change in mood seemed suspicious, but another of Zarina's smiles was enough to make him forget it all. Curse it, he would have to do more to lock up his feelings or they would put him in trouble. Good luck he had had many years of practice.


	8. The Second Attack

The Second attack

The buckets and baskets were piled up above tables and below each mushroom. The tinkers flew from here to there consulting books, choosing tools and repairing gadgets. The repairers's workshop was a very lively and active place, and not even the presence of a pirate had changed any of that. Perhaps it was because the water fairies had already informed their colleagues of the fun that they had had when visited by Hook, or because in their workshop they felt safe, but truth is that just a few fairies stopped to look at him and most of them continued with their duties.

After seeing how good James was in repairing, Clank and Bubble had decided to bring him to the Fairy Mary so that she consented to let him work in the facilities. Zarina was accompanying them, of course. They climbed the mushrooms's wall, some flying and others rather scaling, and came up to the office of Mary, which was in one of the cavities of the rock. Sitting behind her large desk, the fairy didn't even raise her head before asking:

"What is this pirate doing in my office, Bubble?"

"Fairy Mary, we wanted to ask you if Hook could work with us as a repairman."

Mary left the pencil with which she had been writing and turned to Zarina quirking an eyebrow: "Isn't it a little dangerous to leave the prisoner loitering in a place full of tools and blueprints? Wasn't it you who said that we shouldn't let him get close to anything that could be useful to escape?"

"The Queen has given her approval," said Zarina. "And Clank and Bubble have offered to supervise him at all times." Seeing the gaze of distrust of Mary, who of course did not believe the two sparrow men to be able to monitor the pirate on their own, she added: "Also, Tink is coming back this evening, and she won't be easily deceived."

Fairy Mary sighed and left the desk to get closer to them.

"Okay", she said in the end. "Hook will be helping, but until Tinkerbell returns I will monitor his work personally, to see if he is as good as you claim. But I warn you that at the minimum error or accident, you will have to find him another place!" This last, she said it to Zarina, like apologizing, so James noticed that they all pitied Zarina for having to keep an eye on him. Nobody blamed her, and that was not good for him. The more supported Zarina felt by her friends, the more difficult it would become for James to gain her trust.

Naturally, they didn't show him the place, nor did they show him any blueprint. Throughout the morning, they just gave orders to the pirate about what he had to do, without telling him why he was doing it or for what. This irritated James, who hated receiving orders all the time. And to top it Zarina, after giving a few hints to Fairy Mary, had disappeared again. She had surely returned to work.

When Fairy Mary had convinced herself about Hook's skills with construction, they began thinking in which projects he could work. The most important were those of the garden fairies, where they had to manufacture machines to speed up the harvest and to paint both leaves and vegetables with autumn colors. However, with the imminent arrival of winter, the tinkers had to fix the track in which the baskets slid until the owls would pick them up, and were also very busy building more snow machines like the one Tinkerbell had used at Periwinkle's first visit, because now the number of snow fairies who wanted to cross to the warm seasons was increasing. So the tinkers couldn't decide which work to give to Hook.

"But, Fairy Mary," said Bubble "we are already dealing with the baskets and the snow. It would be better if he could help the garden fairies, they are short-handed."

"And then who would monitor him, if you are here?"

"Rosetta would be with him." discussed Clank.

"Rosetta is very busy these days, and what they need there is someone to invent something new that enables them to accelerate the pace of the harvest. Instead, here he would only have to follow the blueprints of something that has already been invented, which seems to me more affordable for him."

"I can't discuss that Fairy Mary." recognized Bubble, offending the pirate "But we all agree that we don't want Hook to approach the fairy dust, no?" the others nodded without understanding what was he talking about. "It turns out that some time ago we asked Zarina to find a way to produce more snow with her alchemy, and now she and her alchemists are working on the project of the snow."

Those were good news. If he convinced them to make him work at those snow machines they were talking about, he would be able to get closer to Zarina once again.

"Know what?" suddenly replied Fairy Mary "It will be better to let Tinkerbell decide."

They all turned to where she was looking to see Tinkerbell appear in the settlement, with her winter outfit, coming towards them as she greeted everyone.

"Hey guys! How are things doing around here?" and then she saw Hook "And what is _he_ doing here?"

"Welcome back Tinkerbell." greeted Fairy Mary "You see, Clank and Bubble assured me that the pirate had skills for repairing, we have spent the morning checking it, and now we were deciding where to employ him."

"But Fairy Mary," protested she "isn't it very dangerous to have a prisoner hanging around here? He shouldn't know how we work." She was spiking with the distrust of someone who had already fought against Hook.

"I know dear, but you know that the Queen wants him to work, and Zarina has already given her approval."

"So Zarina agreed..." the news seemed to worry her, and she thought about it for a while, but at last she nodded. Over the last two years Zarina had become one of her best friends. When the two fairies got excited with an idea no one could stop them, and that had united them a lot, so she understood that her friend trusted her to monitor Hook.

"OK, he'll help us, but he will work with me on the snow-making project." This way Zarina could also watch him.

Perfect. Nothing would had seemed best to James. Not only because now he could approach Zarina, but also because he would be working with the two more prone to accidents fairies in all the Hollow, judging by what he had heard from the water fairies. No doubt that would give him many opportunities to escape.

"Come, I'll show you what we were talking about" said Tinkerbell addressing him "we don't have much time until the sun sets, but I can still make you a demonstration."

They were beginning to move towards the outside of the workshop, where they worked with the baskets and larger machines, when a messenger came flying into the cave and ran to Tinkerbell.

"Pirates! The pirates are back!"

...

Zarina was in her laboratory when the alarm was given. She had finished work at the factory and was watching the sea, so she did not need to listen to the hustle and bustle of the Hollow under her to realize that the pirates had disembarked and were approaching from the Bay of Cannibals, where their ship was docked. Glimmer, Vidia, and five more fairies appeared on her balcony.

"Catapults ready Zarina!" said Glimmer "but we need the storm dust."

Zarina quickly flew to the laboratory and passed them the bags full of gray powder.

"This time we have enough" she said "but if they attack us again we will need to make more."

"Hopefully they won't attack us again" replied Glimmer with a smile, but she didn't seem very convinced. She and the other fairies went flying with the sacks to the catapults, which were about two floors below in the tree, but Vidia stayed.

"We need Tink to help us, she should have already returned."

"Okay, I'll go look for her" said Zarina, and flew hastily to the repairmen's settlement.

All around her the fairies shouted to each other giving orders, everyone flying from here to there organizing the defense and offensive. She immediately found Tinkerbell, who was already waiting for her.

"Are the catapults ready?" shouted the fairy to be heard.

"Yes, Yes, hurry!" said Zarina half turning to go back to the tree. And then she noticed something.

"Where is James?" she said turning to her friend and inspecting the surroundings. Tinkerbell made the same, she seemed surprised.

"He was here a moment ago!" she replied.

The two fairies looked at each other with concern. James had escaped and the pirates were drawing near.


	9. Captain Zarina

Captain Zarina

After returning from her pirate adventure and before Tinkerbell and the others constructed her new house, Zarina had been living in her old apartment for one month. During that period of time she had had many meetings with the Queen and Ministers to explain in detail her activities with the pirates. Now that she knew they had been tricking her all along, she forced herself to remember what exactly had she told them about the pixie dust and, especially, about the location of the Hollow. The Pixie Hollow was located behind the big mountains of Neverland, near to a bay which was next to the Mermaid's Bay. It was protected by magic so that if you looked at the island from the outside you couldn't see it, but to those who knew where it was, it was easy finding it.

When Zarina had encountered the pirates and had become their captain, she wasn't planning on giving them any kind of information other than the promise of a blue powder that could make their ship fly. Unfortunately, as she realized later on, James had somehow managed to pump the information from her. And when the Queen and the Ministers learned that, they immediately started searching ways to protect their home. Even though Zarina was the main culprit, she also had the solution: her alchemy. She had developed, and was about to develop, pixie dust which could be used as a weapon. The only problem was how to fire it to the enemy without having to approach it too much. At first they thought that the quick fairies could do that mission, but they gave up the idea because the number of wind fairies was insufficient and it was too risky for them. And that's where the tinkers took action.

It wasn't a secret that Clank loved fireworks, and when he heard of the problem, he immediately came up with an idea, shooting the pixie dust with catapults. Fairy Mary found it plausible so they started working on it. Soon enough most of the free branches of the Pixie Dust Tree had platforms with catapults in them. It was around this time that Tinkerbell came up with the idea of building Zarina's new laboratory up there. One evening, while the others were still working at the catapults, Tinkerbell found Zarina on the top of the tree.

"Oh, Zarina, I was looking for you. The platforms at the West are ready for you to check them out." She didn't get any response, so she approached her friend, and realized what was she looking at. "You miss the sea, don't you?"

"I don't understand Tink. Why should I miss it? I only have bad memories about those days I spent there."

"Really? Are you sure about that? You seemed very happy when we first saw you at the pirate's ship." Regret showed on Zarina's face. "Look," said Tinkerbell "I'm not saying you did a good think running away with them and then stealing the blue powder, and you obviously feel bad about it, but what you can't deny is that you liked living as Captain Zarina, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to move on. It was funny while it lasted, but now you'll have an even funnier live with the greatest and coolest friends you could have asked for!" Tinkerbell winked at her and she laughed funny, all the sadness gone.

"Thank you Tink. In fact, I think that more than missing it, I just really love to watch the sea."

So the project of the catapults culminated with the construction of Zarina's new house. Barely two weeks later the pirates disappeared from Neverland, but that did not stop Zarina from continuing to practice throwing the new pixie dusts she created. Like this, she not only wrote an entire book of different kinds of pixie dust that served as weapons, but she also became an expert in what concerns to catapults, even better than Tinkerbell, who had only known about her practices after the storm dust incident.

That's why more than one year later, when Captain Hook disappeared in the middle of the pirate's attack, Zarina didn't even bother looking for him. She rapidly flew with Tinkerbell to the top of the tree, where the biggest catapult was kept. Vidia was already preparing everything with the help of Twire and Chipper, two other tinkers. Zarina brought two bags with pixie dust in them, but when her friends opened one of them, the powder they found wasn't grey, but brown. Tinkerbell immediately looked in the other bag and what she saw confused her even more, because the dust was pink.

"Zarina!", shouted the fairy to be heard "I think you made a mistake. This is not storm dust!"

The alchemist, who had started pointing the catapults to the pirates with Twire's help, continued to work while she answered.

"I have already given the storm dust to all the other catapults. The pirates already know about the rays, so we are going to use this one to attack with some other powers."

"What powers do they have?" Asked Chipper as she reached out to touch the pink powder.

"Don't touch it!", exclaimed Zarina turning to them. "That's itchy powder! We'll fire it to the pirates so that they won't be able to defend from the rays, because they'll be scratching themselves."

"And the brown one?", asked Vidia. But Zarina didn't have time to answer.

"They are here! Start the attack!"

Zarina passed them four pairs of gloves. "Put them on to touch the powder. Tink, I'm living things here to you, wait for my others!" And then she disappeared in the sky.

She flew to where Glimmer was waiting with all the other storm fairies.

"Are you ready?"

"When you tell us, Zarina!"

She turned to the woods to where the pirates were coming from, but she couldn't hear anything because of the commotion. She then looked at one of the sparrow men who were with them and gave him a signal. His thunder shocked all the Hollow and suddenly everything became quiet.

"Ok, now!", said she, signaling the storm fairies to begin the operation. They started creating storm clouds, and the Hollow was slowly covered by them. That's how they had defeated the pirates last time: when all the clouds had been gathered, Zarina would give the order and all the catapults at the different levels of the Tree would fire the grey dust towards the storm, charging the clouds with electricity. This way, when the storm fairies fired their beams, the effect would be greatly increased by the magic powder, and thousands of rays would be released.

Tinkerbell and the others were watching from the highest platform, given that they weren't needed until the end. The sky had turned black, and the small lights from bellow weren't capable of illuminating so much darkness. For ten infinite seconds the Hollow became so silent that they could hear the pirates approaching.

"Fire!" Zarina's voice resonated far away and suddenly lots of packets shot by the catapults exploded in the night sky, filling the cloudy ceiling with phantasmagoric lights. It did not take long before the first lightning crossed in front of them. The roar of the storm was so strong that they had to cover their ears. The fireworks kept flying from here to there, surrounding the fairies that where releasing lightning as if it was a bright and enormous spider web. And in the middle of this chaos stood Zarina, calm and firm, gesturing and commanding all the fairies. Maybe in her laboratory, surrounded by strange devices and books she didn't offer much of a pirate image, but seeing her staging the attack like that, no one would have doubted that she was the Pirate Fairy. No matter how many months or years passed, her captain spirit would never leave her. It's because of this that everyone followed her others with trust and respect.

"Can you keep it like this?", asked she to Glimmer.

"Don't worry, we have it under control!"

She then flew to one of the lookouts from where they were controlling the pirates's moves. Fawn's friend, the one who had gone to the terrace the day the pirates had arrived, welcomed her with concern.

"How's the situation Horace?"

"Not too good Zarina.", he answered with a quick glance at her before turning to look at the woods. "The pirates don't retreat, it seems they have found a way to avoid the lightning."

"Ok, got it! Don't worry, I'll head to the Home Tree, we still have some tricks left."

But, just as she was turning, Horace grabbed her sleeve and pulled her.

"Hey, what's that over there?" He was signaling to the spyglass that the tinkers had installed in every lookout, which looked in the direction of the pirates. Zarina took a look through it, but she could only see the forest.

"Look down, between those rocks." And then she saw what the sparrow man was talking about. Jumping from rock to rock down on the path that lead to the entrance of the forest, a tiny man with black hair was trying to run away. James.

"Change of plans!", said Zarina abruptly. "You go to the top of the tree and tell Tinkerbell to wait for me before firing. Oh! And tell Vidia to come help me as soon as she can, I may need help."

"Wait! Where are you going? The pirates will be here any moment, it could be dangerous!"

"I have some issues to handle, just go and tell them that." And as she was saying this she left the place, flying to were the pirate was. The poor sparrow men was too scared to stop her, so he looked through the spyglass one last time before going to the Tree. He could already see the light reflected in the pirate's swords, there was no time to waste.

…

James didn't exactly know why he was escaping. All he knew was that when the emissary had started crying about the pirates, an alarm had popped in his head and before he had known he was already running. There were so much questions he didn't know how to answer: how would he find his crew? How would he return to his original size? How would he regain the loyalty of the other pirates? It was the first time he acted without a plan, but even so he couldn't stop running. It was as if this was the last opportunity he had to get away from the fairies world, a world that wasn't meant for him. He hadn't realized it until he had heard that the pirates were attacking. In fact, before that had happened he was actually enjoying… well no, no, let's just say staying with the fairies hadn't been as troublesome as he had thought. And that, of course, he couldn't accept.

Anyway, being so small wasn't helping him at all, and the path he had chosen didn't make things easier either. He stepped out of the road to take a small break, when he saw him. What he had thought was a rock appeared to be Smee's foot, and he suddenly realized that he was surrounded by pirates. The darkness was so deep, and he was in such a hurry, that he hadn't seen them until now.

"Don't make so much noise!" Smee was commanding them, as difficult to believe as it may seem.

"Who gave you the captain's place? You dwarf…", said another pirate pointing his knife at him.

"Co.. co… come on sirs! No one is taking the captains position, we are here to take him!"

"And what tells you he's still here? What tells you he hasn't taken his old ship and flown away with the pixie dust? He used to say that the fairies had that old ship hidden somewhere inside the island. "

James was starting to feel furious, how dare they talked of him like this? But he also understood that he couldn't appear in front of them with his current appearance, because if he were to do so, most likely they would kill him. Of course Smee was still loyal to him, after all he was a stupid man, but the others wouldn't listen even if he promised them the biggest treasure in the world.

That's what he was thinking when suddenly an enormous shadow covered him. He looked up just in time to see one boot coming right to him. He jumped and could avoid it at the last moment, but more men were going his way.

"Hey,! Watch out stupid morons! I'm here, your captain is here you assholes!"

He kept on shouting but his voice was so weak that they didn't even hear him. He tried to get out of the way but the boots kept hitting the ground around him, there was no place to escape. Also, the rocks were slippery and it made it difficult to walk. He tripped and fell in the mud, and wasn't able to stand. A shadow appeared above and started it's descend towards him. The clay had him trapped, he wouldn't be able to dodge. _"It can't be!_", he thought, "_I can't die! Not like this, not yet!_"

"Here you are!" Someone grabbed him from the arms and moved him before the boot squashed him. "Well, that was close!" Zarina held him strongly and tried flying upwards to get away from the pirate's steps, but then they were noticed.

"Hey, look at that boys, we have a guest!" All the pirates stopped at once and turned around to look at them. They tried to hunt them, but Zarina kept dodging their hands.

"There is too much of them, I can't get away!", exclaimed the fairy. James wasn't heavy, but he slowed down her movements. At this rate they would get caught, unless she let go of him… This thought distracted her and they were about to be captured when Vidia appeared and, taking her hand, she took them away from the pirates. She flew the quickest she could back to the top of the Great Tree, where the tinkers where waiting. She put them on the terrace and Zarina rapidly stood up to continue the operation. James sat near the house, still too confused to react.

"Thanks Vidia, if it hadn't been for you we wouldn't have made it."

"Seriously Zarina, you should have let him be squashed. He deserves it for running away!"

"Come on Vidia, that would have been too cruel, don't you think?", said Chipper with a worried expression. "Tsk!", was all the answer that the wind fairy gave.

Meanwhile Zarina had approached Tinkerbell and was starting to prepare the catapults.

"They are almost here, it's time for us to use the last trick."

"Zarina,", said Tinkerbell whispering so that the others couldn't hear them and holding her hand to stop her "you know she's right. That was way too dangerous, you shouldn't take those risks."

"I know.", said she giving her a sad smile, as she continued to work.

James was still sitting where the fairies had left him, trying to grasp everything that had happened. Not only his own crew, which now despised him, had almost killed him, but he had also been saved by his most hated enemy. Why, why had she saved him? If the pirates had killed him all her problems would have been solved. She would have gotten rid of him without having to dirty her hands. Could it be that she… No, of course not, she hated him. But well, fairies wouldn't let someone die, even if that someone had ruined their live, that's how stupid they were. So he preferred not giving it too much thought. He instead looked at what Zarina was doing.

"This are ready.", said she standing up. "Get ready to fire Tink!"

"Yes my Captain!", exclaimed the fairy with an amused smile and putting her hand on her forehead as a salute. Zarina looked at her with surprise, but then she smiled and looked at the front with renewed enthusiasm.

"Let's do this. Fire!" At that moment, with the arm raised to give the order and looking at the enemy with decision, James thought he saw her old captain, with her sword pointing at the sky, blue skirt and high boots. But the illusion only lasted a few seconds, and no trace of a pirate's appearance was left in her, except for her attitude and the blue bandana that she still wore. A bag full of pink dust flew towards the pirates and it exploded as planned. They didn't even need to use the brown dust, because as soon as the itchy powder fell on them, the pirates weren't able to defend from the rays, and they were forced to withdraw.

Cheers of joy filled the air, while the clouds slowly disappeared, leaving only the starry sky. The fairies around him were jumping from excitement, even Vidia and Tinkerbell hugged, but Zarina stood on the railing looking at the pirates retreat, with a proud smile. It was the first time he saw her like this, so strong, so perfect. At the ship, when she showed that kind of expression, it seemed to him more laughable than impressing, given that she was so small. But now, with the almost full moon illuminating her, the celebration around her and the happiness on her face, James would have sworn he had never seen something so beautiful. But the spell broke as soon as she turned to look at him, now with more of a serious expression.

"Tie him up.", she said to her friends. "He's not running away ever again."


	10. Hard labours

Hard labours

Captain Hook didn't return to his cell immediately. Once Vidia and Chipper had tied him to the railing, he had had to stay there until Queen Clarion and the Ministers could come. After the attack it was obviously more important to analyze the situation to know if the giant pirates would repeat the attack than to take care of a single pirate who wasn't even twenty centimeters tall and who's only sin had been an unsuccessful attempt to escape, so it took them a while to go attend this matter. The fairies left to help tidy everything, except for Zarina, who stayed to keep an eye on him. This was probably his last opportunity to do something before the Queen sentenced him with a 24 hours imprisonment, so he gave it a try.

"I guess it's too late to ask for forgiveness, isn't it?"

Zarina dropped what she was doing and looked at him with a suspicious look.

"Yes, definitely. Anyway I don't think you would really mean it.", said she, returning to store the pixie dust inside the house.

"Come on! The way I behaved… it's not what you think."

"Ah, no? Then you weren't trying to steal the blue powder when you attacked the Hollow with your whole crew?"

"I'm not talking about that time, I'm talking about two years ago. I…"

This time Zarina left her work aside and turned to stand before him.

"Ok, ok, stop it! James, you are wasting your time. If I really thought you could change, you would already have the blue powder. I don't trust you the slightest and if you are still here it's only because of the Queen."

"Is that so?", responded he with an evil smile. "And then why did you save me, sweetie?"

For a moment it seemed like Zarina was going to blush, but then her smile became evil too.

"Oh because, you see, being crushed under a pirate's shoe didn't seem enough punishment to me. And now that you have tried to run away, I'm sure the Queen will start to think of you differently."

"So that's what you were up to. I thought you were being strangely kind."

"Well, I've had time enough to plan a good revenge. But don't worry, I'm thinking of helping you this time."

"And why this honor?", said he ironically. Zarina approached him even more, so he could hear her threatening words. Now their faces were nearly touching. If they hadn't been so concentrated in the verbal battle, they could have heard each other's heartbeats.

"Because the punishment for running away is not even half as great as what I have planned for you. I'm sure you'll be able to escape from this one but, let's be serious, we both know that sooner or later you'll try something again and, at that time, I'll be there to catch you."

"So that's the game we'll be playing?"

"It would seem so."

Luckily for them their conversation was interrupted, because their heartbeats were starting to run a little bit too fast. The Queen and the Ministers, followed by Fairy Mary and some of Zarina's friends showed up in the terrace. She went with her friends and they all became quiet to listen to what Clarion had to say.

"James Hook, when you arrived to this place we made a pact. We accepted to let you out of your cell, if you behaved. But today's attempt to run away can't be considered as a form of good behavior and, as a consequence, we will apply the appropriated punishment. We first thought of a 24 hours imprisonment" James looked at Zarina, because it seemed the right time to interfere, but she didn't say anything. "but there's a lot of work to do this days, and it would be a waste to lock up any kind of help. That's why we condemn you to hard labour, and we will keep the two months term. That is, of course, if your guardian agrees." She looked at Zarina and, to James surprise, she nodded. "Ok then, it is settled. Fairy Mary will be the in charge of finding the most appropriated and hard duties for you." And once this was said, she and the Ministers returned to their respective jobs.

"I thought you were going to defend me.", said James to Zarina when she approached him.

"And that's what I did. Believe me, hard labour is nothing compared to not being able to come out of your cell. In fact, I think you should be grateful." That she said with a mocking smile.

"That's cheating! You clearly have the advantage here. Couldn't you give me a tiny help?" He tried to put up his most innocent look, but Zarina didn't fall for it.

"Don't worry, I'm sure that with your intelligence and your wisdom you'll be able to figure something out." And she returned with her friends. Now that the game had truly started it was going to be difficult, but at least she was willing to play. Too bad for her, no one had ever won him at this before, he hadn't become captain for granted. He watched Zarina talk with her friends, as his excitement started to raise.

Silver and Glimmer had gone to the floors below to help, and their other friends would be returning from Mainland two days from then, but Tinkerbell and Vidia were still in the terrace with Zarina. They were worried.

"Zarina, are you sure about this?", said Tinkerbell lowering her voice. "Wouldn't it be safest if we locked him up in his cell?"

"You already heard the Queen, he'll be more profitable this way."

"Don't fool us.", replied Vidia with a harsh look. "You know that if you had told her she would have done whatever you had asked, so why are you helping him? Don't tell me he's tricked you again with his sweet words."

"Of course not!", exclaimed Zarina a little bit annoyed. "Girls, I have to do this. This time I'll be the one to beat him up, I'll be the one to win."

"And are you sure that this will make you happy?", asked Tinkerbell. Zarina didn't seem convinced, but she was stubborn.

"I need to do this Tink."

"Fine, fine!", interrupted Vidia. "But don't come crying to us when everything goes wrong, 'cause it will."

"Vidia, don't be so harsh on her." Tinkerbell looked at Zarina in the eyes, so serious it didn't seem her. "Just promise me you'll be careful."

"I know what I'm doing Tink, I swear.", she said, and then she smiled cheerfully. "Actually, I plan on having a lot of fun with this!" She winked an eye at them and grabbed one of the pixie dust bags to store it. Her friends sighted but her cheerfulness was contagious so they followed her happily.

After they disappeared inside the house Fairy Mary, who had accompanied the Queen downstairs, appeared with two more tinkers James had never seen before.

"Ok, take him. We have a lot of work to do and we must start as soon as possible."

"Wha… hey, hey! Wait a moment.", interrupted he. "It's almost midnight! Do you plan on making me work all night?"

"We have to fix it all in case the pirates attack again, everyone is helping and you are not an exception. Nobody sleeps tonight!"

The two tinkers, a fairy and a sparrow men, took him by the arms and transported him all the way down to the tinkers meadow. They didn't even use the stairs, and the pirate had to admit he felt a little dizzy because of the height. They then put him down and waited for Clank to arrive. He brought Cheese, the mouse, with him. The animal was carrying a cart full of strange pieces.

"Here comes your first task. Cheese is too busy today helping with the carts, so you are going to do half of his job.", said Fairy Mary as if it were the most natural thing.

"Do you mean I'll have to carry this around?", responded him with a scared face.

"Hard labours, remember?"

He couldn't believe it, but they all seemed so convinced that he came to the conclusion that protesting would only lead to an even more exhausting task, so he swallowed his bad mood and went to replace the mouse.

"Come Cheese.", said Clank. "There's still work to do."

The two tinkers who were still with them tied him to the cart and then they left. Fairy Mary stood beside him to explain what he had to do.

"See those fairies over there? They are building new catapults and repairing the ones which broke. You have to take the pieces from the storehouse and bring them to the repairers. When you are finished, you do it again and again until I say. Got it?"

James nodded and the fairy left him alone. Not that he could run away tied as he was. He tried lifting the cart, only to check that it was as heavy as he had imagined, maybe more. But there wasn't anything he could do, so he went all the way to the repairers with an incredible effort. The fairies took the pieces very fast, they didn't even say thanks, everyone was too busy. So he returned to the storehouse to have his cart refilled.

The light fairies had put little torches all over the place and, although there was a lot of work, all the fairies seemed happy, it was obvious that they liked working together. The atmosphere was nice, but James almost couldn't raise his head to look at it because of the heavy load he had on his shoulders. He was starting to think that the imprisonment would have been better. After the first five trips he started to get used to it, but when the twentieth had ended, he couldn't take one more step. But no one had told him to stop, so he continued until he became like a somnambulist and his body kept working on his own. The hours passed by and he continued to take the pieces from here to there, and the fairies kept asking for more. At some point of the night Zarina appeared next to him. He only noticed her when she started to talk, but he didn't leave his trance.

"Wow! I see you have started your hard labour.", said she with mocking tone. She didn't obtain a response, so she insisted. "Are you angry at me? Or is it that you are so exhausted that you can't talk?"

"I'm… not… exhausted…", managed to replay he.

"I see, I see," She was too noisy, he couldn't properly concentrate in the road. "I'm sure you are having a lot of fun with the game," He wasn't, this sucked and she didn't even let him do it properly. "but I don't see how you are going to win if you continue to act like a zombie." She was laughing at him and he couldn't even respond. But it didn't matter, he was just too exhausted, too sleepy…

"Anyway, you already had your brake a while ago, so you shouldn't be so tired."

"I…" He had to stop to catch his breath in order to reply. "I haven't had any break…"

"Wait, do you mean you've been working five hours none-stop?"

At that precise moment the pirate collapsed in front of her. She watched him laying on the grown but she didn't react until a bunch of fairies gathered around her.

"What's happening here? Why has everyone stopped they work… Oh my!", exclaimed Fairy Mary arriving to where Zarina was. "I forgot about him! Don't tell me he's been working for…"

"Five hours.", said Tinkerbell, who had also come to see what had happened.

"Yes,", said Zarina. "it seems we overdid it a little." She then kneeled and, passing his arm around her shoulder, she lifted him. "Don't worry, I'll take him to his cell." Fairy Mary nodded and they all returned to work.

James regained consciousness as Zarina left him on his bed. He wanted to say something but he was just too tired.

"It seems you really earned your sleep tonight." He looked at her but he didn't respond, although the ironical commentary should have made him angry.

"Don't worry, next time you'll have a break. It would be too boring if you where always too tired to talk." She closed the door from the outside and then she took a last look inside. "Sweet dreams, James." And she left.

The pirate closed his eyes and tried to think, but it was too troublesome. He didn't even cover himself with the leaves. The fatigue from running away, the nerves in his confrontation with Zarina, the tiredness of carrying the cart, they all piled up on him, and he fell into a deep sleep without dreams.


	11. Snowballs war

Snowballs war

He got up startled. Something had woken him, the silence. The sun light was already shining outside, but he couldn't hear anyone. Not just anyone, he couldn't hear a sound. Not even the wind shaking the leaves of the trees, or the distant sound of the river's cascade. Everything was too silent…

After his nap he was feeling pretty good, although he had thought that all the work from the past night would have him exhausted at least one entire day. He stood up and went to the door. He looked outside at the road, and down at the tinker's settlement, but there was no one to be seen. Just as he was leaning on the door to try seeing further away, the grille swung, making him almost fall. The door was open! How could that be? But he didn't think about it too much, he rapidly stepped outside and closed it after him. Now he had to escape, but in which direction? He was sure the fairies had some maps of the Hollow in the storehouses below him, so he followed the road to the big courtyard where the carts where kept. He had to be quick or someone might find out that he had run away. He was deciding which entry to take, when he heard a voice.

"Hey girls, did you see that?" He turned around, but he couldn't see anyone.

"Isn't that Hook?" They were definitely fairies voices, but he was alone.

"I think he's trying to run away!" This was bad, they were going to capture him again, but where should he escape?

"We should catch him" Now he was sure, the voices where coming from above. But he couldn't see any fairy flying. The sky was blue and he couldn't find the fairies in it. But suddenly, something covered the sun.

"Let him to me." That was Zarina's voice, and all of a sudden a giant boot was falling on him. And it wasn't just one boot, there were hundreds of enormous boots approaching him at high speed. He tried running away, but the cart he was tied to was too heavy. He pulled and pulled but it wouldn't move, and the boots were coming, they were going to crush him!

"Nooooooooooo!" James woke up in his bed, still terrified. He was covered in sweat and his hands were shaking. He glanced around with fear but he was in his cell once again. A nightmare, it had only been a nightmare. He sat in the bed and started to notice all the exhaustion of the past night. Yes, there was no doubt this was reality. But then, why did he have the sensation that something was wrong?

He slowly stood up and went to the door. The sunlight was already shining outside, but he couldn't hear anyone. His tired muscles were telling him that this wasn't a dream but then, why the silence? He cautiously put his hand on the grille and pushed. It didn't move. For the first time since he had arrived he felt relieved that the door was closed. He looked outside but, just like in his nightmare, the road was deserted, and so was the courtyard below him. He thought about shouting, but he didn't really want to see anyone, so he returned to sit on his bed. He was starting to remember his hard labours, and the fatigue was rapidly replaced by anger. And the more he remembered, the more the anger evolved into fury. He was upset that the fairies had done that to him, and he was definitely sure that some of Zarina's comments had been meant to ridicule him, but the worst of it all was that he hadn't been able to defend himself from them. He had let Zarina laugh at him all she had wanted, and he hadn't even defended. No matter what the labour was, no matter how exhausted he was, he wasn't going to let anything of that stop him from making her pay for it next time. Because he was going to make her pay for it. He didn't know where she was, or where had everyone gone, but when they returned to pick him up, he would have a plan ready to ridicule her. And so, he started to plan. Sitting in the bed, he came up with a lot of good ideas to make her pay, or so he thought, and once he had decided on one to put in practice, he waited for someone to come. But no one came. The hours passed by while the sun reached its higher spot and then started its descend, and he was still waiting.

Fairy Mary's voice woke him up. He brusquely stood up and had to sit down when his head started spinning. He had fallen asleep without realizing.

"Good morning Hook. Or should I say good evening? You've been sleeping since you fainted last night, so at least you should be able to stand up."

He didn't like the fairy's tone, so he stood up again although he was feeling a bit dizzy.

"Where had all of you gone?", asked he as he approached the entry.

"What do you mean _gone_?"

"I woke up this morning and I couldn't find anyone."

"Aah, I see.", answered the fairy. "But, of course, we were sleeping. Since we worked until the sun had raised, the Queen resolved that everyone should have some hours of sleep before returning to their jobs. Anyway, we finished most of it so there isn't too much to do this evening, so some fairies are still sleeping."

"And I'm going to be one of the few who will work, no?"

"You are completely right." And after saying this the fairy opened the gate and had the two fairies that were accompanying her tie him up. They then left the cell and descended to the courtyard, that was now full of people. They went to one of the corners, and James noticed that the temperature had abruptly decreased. They arrived at the place Fairy Mary was leading them to, and there he saw the snow magic for the first time.

In front of him there were five big machines that were expelling snow from five tubes that looked like gramophones. Besides this machines, some tinkers were looking at the blueprints and collecting pieces to build new ones, and at the other side, Zarina and two more fairies with brown outfits were manipulating some light blue powder. In fact it was more like a purple-blue white powder. A tinker came to them and gave them all fluffy jackets to wear. After that, one of Zarina's helpers came too and sprinkled white powder on the wings of the three fairies. James watched stunned as the dust turned into frost on their wings.

"I'll never get tired of this sensation.", said Fairy Mary with a pleased smile.

James put his jacket on and then he turned to look at what Zarina was doing. She had finished preparing the pixie dust, and she had climbed to the first machine. She introduced the pixie bag in an overture on the right side of it, and then she pressed a button. At first the snow that came out of it increased, but then it suddenly stopped. The machine started to tremble violently and everyone covered themselves before the tube exploded and an avalanche of snow covered it all. Zarina came out of the pile of snow surrounding the machine, and addressed her friends.

"Too potent, I would say." They all laughed and she stood up, just to see him standing far enough not to get covered in snow.

"Here you have him, Zarina.", said Fairy Mary. "You said you needed someone to do a harsh job, didn't you?"

"Yes, thank you Fairy Mary."

The others returned to work as she approached him. Her hair was still covered in snow.

"So, tell me, how did our sleeping Prince rest? Are you sure you are not too tired to work?" His anger was returning, but he managed to control it.

"Would you let me rest if that were the case?"

"You are right." She was clearly enjoying this.

"Here Zarina, is this what you asked for?", said a timid tinker who had approached them. She was holding a big shovel two times bigger than she herself.

"Yes, this is it. Thank you Timber." She turned to look at him, with that teasing glance he loved and hated at the same time. "I imagine you've already guessed why you need this shovel." And she passed it to him. He had to put most of his strength in the receive, it truly was a big shovel. "The guys themselves chose it for you.", said she pointing at Clank and Bobble. "I think they are a bit disappointed at you for running away." She was definitely enjoying it. "You can start with this pile of snow and don't worry, I'll have more ready when you finish." And with that said, she returned to her job.

James started to shovel the snow, putting it in a cart that some fairies had brought. Every time he had all cleaned and tidy, another experiment failed and he had to start all over again. After half an hour had passed, his arms had gotten used to it and he could concentrate more in what the fairies were saying. What interested him was the conversation of the alchemists, they were talking about how to manipulate pixie dust, and it was pretty amazing. He learned that mixing different kinds of powered dust you could obtain new powers, like with the snow dust, and although all the other things that were said he already knew them from Zarina, he listened to every one of them. He was so distracted that he didn't realize he was standing in front of the machine Zarina was going to use, and he noticed too late.

All he could see was white around him and he felt an incredible cold all over his body, when a hand pulled him out of the pile. All the fairies were looking at him with surprise, while the dust keeper that had rescued him helped him to get rid of the snow in his jacket. Then Zarina herself came out of another pile of snow, and when she saw he was in the same condition as her, she busted to laugh. She was laughing at him again, and he couldn't take it anymore. He kneeled down, took a handful of snow, and making it into a ball, he threw it to her. The ball impacted in her face, and a snowballs fight started. All the tinkers where participating, while the alchemists (except Zarina) carried over the experiment, but James was only concerned with Zarina. Now he was decided on taking revenge, but how? And then he found an opportunity. He stood up and shouted at Zarina:

"Let's see if you can touch me!" She threw a ball just as he bended, and the ball passed flying and went to bump in Fairy Mary's face. The battle stopped and they all looked at the angry fairy who was staring at them.

"Who was it? Who threw this snowball?" Perfect, now Zarina was going to pay for it.

"It was me, Fairy Mary,", said she, standing up too. And what followed wasn't exactly what James had planned. The tinker's chief took a handful of snow, shaped it, and threw it to Zarina with all her might. All the fairies laughed and resumed the game. The pirate didn't understand. Back when he worked at the port as a boy, if he had done that to his chief the lightest punishment would have been being fired, and when he was Captain he would have killed anyone who did that to him, so why hadn't Zarina been punished? He was so confused that he didn't see that Clank was throwing an enormous snowball at him, which splashed in his bag and made him trip. He fell into the snow and hit his head. No one noticed except Clank, who was obviously happy to have achieved his revenge, and Zarina, who came to him.

"Are you alright?" She was laughing but at least she held a helping hand. Just as he was accepting the help another experiment failed, and the big explosion, bigger than any of the last ones, sank them all in the snow. When he managed to head out of the white coat all the fairies were helping each other, the battle had finished. He tried standing but he noticed some weight over his legs. He pushed them up, and Zarina came out of the snow, she had fallen on top of him. Her hair was still covered with white specks, her cheeks where flushed because of the cold, their faces where too close… James's heart started to race. Then Zarina realized she was sitting on him, and she suddenly blushed.

"Oh, ah… I'm.. I'm sorry! The snow fell on me and… and… I tripped." She quickly stood up to get off of him. "Well, it seems you have a lot of work to do with your shovel so I… I'll return to my job." And she flew away. James didn't move for a while, he still couldn't understand what was that sensation he had had when looking at her. But the temperature was too low, and he cooled down quickly enough. It was clear that he would have to use another way to get revenge, because making her superiors punish her was out of the question. He left it for the next day, one fail a day was more than enough, although he had to admit that the snowballs battle had been fun.


	12. Black haired siblings

Black haired siblings

It was a sunny morning, like always, and Zarina was about to get to work. Now that the snow dust was finally ready, she was going to have to spend some days working at the factory until the other alchemists could produce it on their own. She took her dust's book, which was a classification of all kinds of pixie dust, and left the terrace.

The past two days had been very intense, the first one after the pirate's attack, and the second one trying to make the snow machines overwork. She giggled at the thought of "overworking". The sunflowers field was empty, because in this time of the year no fairies worked with the flowers, so she flew right to the Mill, where the factory was. Now that her work had been avowed she didn't have to keep her pixie dust ration, although she still enjoyed going on a walk. James's hard labours had only started and she couldn't laugh more than she already had. The past day he had had to continue shoveling snow from morning to afternoon and, although this time he hadn't fainted, he had caught a cold. Truth was that they had forgotten that humans had colds, but the animal fairies had already found a cure, so they could keep "overworking" him. That's why she had requested for him to be send to the factory and help carry the pixie dust bags. When she arrived he was already at it. She pretended that she hadn't seen him, and went directly to her desk in the main hall. Lonny and Ria came immediately to help her with the book, it had gotten impressively big with all the recent discoveries.

"We have prepared the first step of the process, Zarina.", said Lonny. "Do you want to revise it?"

Lonny was a truly hyperactive and thin sparrow man with short black hair and very pale skin who never stopped talking, and she enjoyed his company because he was very funny, even though sometimes she had to ask him to shut up. She knew there was no need to revise their work, because the two fairies had been practicing the past afternoon-evening, but she also knew that if she didn't do it he would start asking about everything, so she followed them.

"See, we put this dust in here and the other one in that room over there, I had some trouble remembering which was which, you know, as if I hadn't practiced! And then you push this lever to that side, am I right? And you turn this to the left and the other a bit to the right…" Ria stopped him with her hand, and made as if she was going to say something. "Oh, you're right Ria! It was to the right and then to the left." He did it and the machine started doing some strange noises before a jet of purple-blue white pixie dust came out of its bottom. "Right as always!", exclaimed Lonny while Ria smiled.

Ria was all the opposite from him. She never spoke more than necessary, although she wasn't shy at all, actually she was very sincere, and she had an incredible concentration power. This made her very good at memorizing things and, thus, a good worker. She also loved to learn, which was what had made her become an alchemist. Her aspect, on the contrary, was exactly like Lonny's: she was also small and thin, with pure white skin, and had an extremely long straight black mane, which covered half of her face. Some said it was to hide the fact that one of her eyes was purple. She was loved by everyone, because she was cute and kind, and sometimes she also recalled them of an old sage. At first when she arrived the other fairies kept their distance, not because they were scared, but because she was too distant, like out of their reach. The truth was that she preferred reading than talking, but that didn't mean she didn't want friends. The first one to understand this had been Lonny. He took a liking on her and started visiting her every day, until he ended up joining the alchemists. From that moment on, they had become inseparable. Some thought that they were just a truly well-matched couple, but in reality they were more like siblings, their aspect also seemed to suit this description, as if they had been born from the same baby laugh. You couldn't love one of them without loving the other. It was the perfect duo: Ria, with her amazing memory, knew everything there was to know about pixie dust and Lonny, with his active nature, was able to experiment with his imagination and her indications. With this combination they had become one of the most important alchemists, you could say they counted as one, and one of Zarina's best friends and helpers.

Zarina left them at the machines and went to sit at her desk. She was there merely for consulting and she didn't feel like investigating, so she opened the enormous book and started to read. "_Pixie Dust Rainbow_", said the title. That was how she had decided to name the powders classification. "_All kinds of pixie dusts can be classified in a rainbow pattern which goes from light colors to the dark ones (left to right), and from red to pink (from top to bottom). The ones on the right and left ends are the ones with the most amazing and dangerous powers: the black one is_…"

"Here you go, a bag full of fresh pixie dust!" The sound of the bag hitting the ground awoke her from the reading. James had left the sack next to the table and had now approached her. "The black one is…" Zarina quickly closed the book without looking at him.

"What are you doing, James?" She tried to seem severe, but the pirate's attitude was too funny.

"Come on sweetie, it seems a pretty interesting book." He was right behind her, with his head next to hers as he looked at the book.

"I'm going to ask Fairy Mary to find you another place to work, this wasn't a good idea after all." She pretended to be reading the book's cover, trying not to look at him.

"Okay, okay, I'll leave." He straightened and then he looked at the pair of black haired fairies. "Aren't those strange?" She lifted her head in the direction he was pointing. Ria and Lonny were acting like they always did, but to someone who didn't know them their supernatural coordination could even seem devilish.

"They just get along very well." She was trying to ignore him, but he kept talking. What was he up to?

"What a stupid relationsh…" He couldn't finish the sentence because something hit his head. It was Burrell's rod. The tinker was flying above them with an angry expression. Burrell had short blond hair, which she tied up in a small bun, and dark green eyes, she was pretty tall and her skin had Zarina's color, maybe a little bit darker. She was known for being very strict, and that day she was in charge of monitoring James.

"When did I say you could take a break, pirate? There are still five more bags and they are not going to enter the mill by themselves!" James seemed very fed up with her, but it was funny seeing him get scolded. And then Zarina had an idea.

"Burrell! I wanted to talk to you. We don't have too much work right now and I think we can enter those bags ourselves, but there are like ten heavy jugs out there and I need them in the warehouse to store the snow dust. Could you enter them instead please?"

"But of course Zarina, it'll be my pleasure.", said the tinker with a wink.

"As if she was going to carry them herself…", replayed James, now truly angry.

"Less talking and more working!", exclaimed Burrell. The pirate started to walk towards the door looking at Zarina with a hateful expression, as she smiled back to him. She was still winning, but somehow she had the feeling he wasn't truly playing yet. Or maybe he was only lost, who knew.

Lonny looked at Zarina smile stupidly while the pirate left the room with Burrell following him closely.

"That man is trouble. What do you think Ria?" He turned to look at his friend who had also stopped working. She looked at the pirate try to raise the first pitcher, which was two times bigger than him.

"He's going to make her cry.", was her short and enigmatic answer.

"Indeed.", replayed Lonny. He was used to her super precise and sincere answers. They both returned to work with the eleventh machine (they were very efficient). After a while he stopped again and stared at the lever he was holding with a faraway look. Ria raised her head and gave him a questioning look. It wasn't normal to see him keep a doubt to himself.

"Should we tell her?", asked he looking at Zarina. Ria turned the lever to the right and then to the left and a jet of purple-blue white dust came out from the bottom of the machine. Then she looked at Lonny with a sorrowful smile.

"She wouldn't listen. Is that what you are thinking?", asked Lonny.

"She'll have to find it out by herself." They both looked at their cheerful friend who was staring at her book without reading it at all, and then they moved to the next machine.

…

By lunch time all the machines were producing snow dust without problems, and Zarina was about to teach all the workers how to handle it. Behind her desk they had put a big blackboard and every time a new alchemists joined them, or when they found a new color of pixie dust, she gathered all her fellows and did an exposition of the way to produce it, its use and precautions. This way it was easier to get the information to everyone.

On the desk she had a bowl with snow powder, a pair of gloves and her book. She took a piece of chalk and started drawing a dust-producing machine, while the explanation began. All the fairies had sat on the floor before her, between the desk and the machines, and were paying attention to the class. Even Burrell, who wasn't at all interested in what she was saying, had been caught by Zarina's enthusiasm. James entered the hall carrying the last jug on his bag, and he stopped to look at the scene, but the load was too heavy, so he hurried to the warehouse, which was to the left of the entrance. When he finished he returned to the room where Zarina was speaking, and then he noticed that no one was looking at him. He could have easily escaped, but he now understood that that would have only ended with his tinny self being lost in the middle of Never Land, at most. Instead, he slipped behind the fairies and entered the library, which was at the left of the machines. There seemed to be pretty interesting books in those shelves, and maybe they could be of some use to him. The library had two floors, and the second one had a balcony which gave to the main hall. He had seen one interesting book up there, so he climbed the spiral staircases and started looking for it. But he stopped in the middle of his search, and looked out of the railing, down to the blackboard full of explanations he didn't understand. At that moment Zarina was putting on her gloves to show how to frost someone's wings. She was so radiant, she didn't seem affected by him at all. Before it had been the same, he had tried to make her feel uncomfortable, but she had continued reading as if nothing. Was she truly such a good actress, or was he lacking charm? This is what he was thinking, when he noticed a presence to his right.

"I thought you had come to take a book, but it seems you were only looking for a better view."

The intense blue eye of the tiny girl looked at him deeply, as if she was seeing through him. She was wearing a light brown dress with a blue ribbon around her waist and, to James's surprise, she was barefoot. All the fairies he had seen wore shoes, but this one only had her dress on her, which made her look like a little girl, although her gaze seemed two-thousands years old.

"Say, what are your intentions with her?" This time the voice came from his left. He turned and saw a tiny sparrow man looking at him with the same blue eyes. He was wearing a brown t-shirt made of a light brown leave, a blue belt, and dark brown tights long to the ankles. He was also barefoot. Like when he had seen them in the machines that morning, the two fairies were perfectly coordinated. Their stance was exactly the same, both hands on the railing, three intense blue eyes looking at him.

"As if I would tell you." Why did he say that? Wouldn't it have been better to tell them he wasn't planning anything, or that he only wanted to be forgiven? They both leaned over the railing at the same time, now looking at Zarina.

"So you do have a plan.", said Lonny.

"I would be stupid if I didn't." Why was he being so sincere?

"I suppose you would." The silence that followed his statement was pretty dense, as they looked at Zarina do the last part of the explanation.

"We can't let him take a book.", said Ria to her friend.

"It could be dangerous.", responded Lonny.

"Indeed.", answered she. The conversation was kind of comic, although they were all deathly serious. But somehow James couldn't leave.

"You should return to your work.", said them both.

"Indeed.", answered the pirate. And then he felt as if he had gotten rid of a big weight. He left the balcony and descended to the main hall. The conference had already ended, and Burrell was looking for him.

"Where have you been? I get distracted for a moment and you leave your job like that? Don't think we are finished. I'm not like the other fairies, I don't care if you faint…"

He kept walking towards the entrance without listening to her, thinking of what had just happened. It had been as if he was trapped in an invisible spider web, and he was starting to have the nasty sensation that if they had kept with the interrogatory, he would have told them everything without a second thought. And that intense blue.. it gave him the chills. He still felt the icy glare upon him, although when he had first seen them working at the machines they seemed a very cheerful couple. It was as if their personalities had completely changed. A dangerous pair, those black haired siblings.


	13. Fireflies or fireworks

**Hi there everyone, here comes chapter thirteen! Sorry I didn't write anything last week, but my computer died(it wouldn't turn on...) and I couldn't publish. Also, my exams are coming soon so I can't assure you that I'll publish next week either. Even so, I already have some ideas so if you review a lot I might make an extra effort ;) Enjoy the Reading!**

Fireflies or fireworks

On the fourth day of his hard labours, James could already say that he knew the Hollow pretty well, not because he had visited all of it, but because he had "found" a map in the tinkers's library. It hadn't been easy, because he was being watched constantly, but in his last task his guardian had been the librarian, a very clueless fairy, chubby and red haired, who had been extremely shy around him, so he had managed to slip between the shelves until he found what he was looking for: a book about the Hollow. Nearly all of the pages had been eaten by the librarian's helper, a silkworm fat enough to compete with Cheese in size, who had run away when he looked at it with anger. Luckily, the page he needed was unscratched.

He stared at the roof of his cell and listened. The noise of the last awake fairies had already banished in the night, and now he could only hear the crickets in the far away meadow. He stood up stealthily and went to the door. He then took a piece of his lunch from his trouser's pocket and shacked it outside of the grating. First he heard an intense buzz, second the road outside brightened as if the sun had risen, and in a few seconds all the front of the door was full of fireflies. He had discovered how to attract them two days ago at dinner time when Blaze, Tinkerbell's firefly friend, stole some of his cake. So this was the second time he tried it, and he wasn't too skillful. Last night all the fireflies had entered the cave and the astounding light had almost given him away. He took one big portion of the food and threw it down to the tinker's yard. All the insects but three fell for it. He then split the food he had left, he gave some to two of them, and then he lured the last one inside the cell. While the firefly was eating on top of his bed (he gave it more food to delay its return), he looked under the bed and took a pencil and a small package he was hiding there. He slowly unfolded it on the floor. The outspread map was half his length, so he could only draw it when he was completely sure that no one was near. That's why he had waited for night to come, because the fairies almost never worked at those hours.

His plan wasn't to hound Zarina anymore, because he hadn't been able to go near her in the past fifty hours. His job was to blame for most of it, but truth was that every time he entered the Dust Mill he felt a cold (and blue) gaze staring at him. He didn't understand why, because every time he looked at the black haired pair they greeted him kindly, with that undoubted honesty that confused him so much. After two visits he had reached the conclusion that for the moment it was faster to find a way to escape than to wait for Zarina to let her guard down. The first step to his plan, stealing a map, had already been accomplished, and with the pencil he had taken from the tinker's workshop he could draw an escape route. What was left was to find a moment of distraction and run. Last time he had done it without thinking, but now everything had been carefully set, so there was no reason for him to panic and get killed. Once he reached the Cannibal's Bay he would swim to the ship and recruit his crew to attack the Hollow once again, and he would force the fairies to return him to his size. The pirates would be difficult to convince, but he was proud enough of his cunning to be sure that he would find a way to trick them.

He noticed he was no longer looking at the map, and tried to concentrate. Since he had finished arranging his escape, a tiny sadness had started taking form in his heart. He had decided to try the plan the next day, because he couldn't stand the thought of having a fairy scold him once more, but leaving Zarina, or let's say leaving the game he had with her unfinished, itched a little. Somehow, being tiny wasn't as horrible as he had imagined. Although they had tired him, the different labours he had been "asked" to do had turned out to be very interesting. He left the pencil on the floor and started thinking. His first job had been the river's waterfall, but he didn't count it because it had been before the pirate's attack. After that he had carried the carts full of catapults pieces, shoveled snow for an entire day, carried bags and enormous jars full of pixie dust, brought new material to the fairies, brought tons and tons of food from the Autum's Forest for the animals which would start hibernation in a few weeks, transported the biggest fruits of the harvest to the storehouses and moved the newly constructed shelves from the tinker's workshop to the library. If you looked at it within this perspective, you could say that it was a lot of work in only six days, but he had also done all kinds of other things. To prevent him from fainting, and with a lot of mocking because of it, the fairies had made sure that he ate "like a bear who's just woken up from hibernation", as Fawn had pointed. He had been able to taste the most delicious food he had had in his entire live, considering that the menu on a ship wasn't as sophisticated. In this aspect the fairies had been surprisingly generous. And he had to admit that thanks to all the food and exercise he was more fit than when he arrived, in only six days! Maybe his change of size had accelerated his metabolism, interesting.

His thoughts were flying towards a self-centered world when suddenly the light went out. This scared him, and the first thing he did was to try to hide the map folding it so fast that he creased it, but then he heard a peaceful snoring that came from his bed. No one had caught him, it was only that the firefly had fallen asleep. _"What kind of firefly sleeps at night?"_ Thought James while he properly put the big leaf in its stash. He shook the little insect to chase it out and laid on the leaf mattress. He wouldn't have done so if he needed light for the following nights but, well, he was leaving the next day after all. He closed his eyes and for some reason Zarina's face showed before him. He opened his eyes again. This was probably going to be a pretty long night, what a pain…

_"Should I say goodbye to her?"_ he thought.

_"Whoooa, stop right there!",_reproached he to himself. –_"The hell are you thinking? Do you want to get caught?"_

**Let's make things easy, this represents Jame's internal fight, so I'll just divide him in two "James", the pirate and the charming, ok? Now, you may continue ;)**

"Come on, I'm just saying that we waited too damn long to see her again, and now that things are getting interesting we can't even say farewell?",exploded the charming one.

"You mean you waited for a chance to take revenge, don't you?",asked the pirate with an intimidating look.

"Of… of course! That's obviously what I meant! And don't try to fool me, you wanted to fight her as much as I did!",responded the charming.

"Well, she is a fantastic adversary, after all.",admitted the pirate.

"So we agree in this, no?"

"Yes, you could say we do."

-a moment of peace-

"But we are not going to say goodbye.",reminded the pirate, teasing.

"You still think I'm stupid."

"If you say so, it must be true.",said the pirate, he was enjoying this.

"Do I have to remind you who I am? Who we are? Do you think I could be as fool as to let myself get caught for something as meaningless as some feelings?",tried to argument the charming.

"Of course I know we wouldn't!",protested the pirate. And then he stopped, a little confused. "And if you don't do it for feelings, what are your motives?".

"They are motives of a wise men, of course. I thought that it wouldn't be fair to not give some clue to our enemy, we are playing a game here. Running away like some rats doesn't suit a gentlemen like us, don't you agree, my friend?" The pirate thought about it for some seconds, he wasn't as stupid as to fall in his own trap, but he was starting to like the way charming was putting it. So he tried his last cart.

"But dear James, we'll be returning in a few days to retrieve our size, you can say goodbye to her then. We can even take her with us if we want!"

"You have your point, but wouldn't it be extremely satisfactory to see her stupid face when she sees us return and realizes that we had given her a clue to know that we were going to escape and she missed it?" This destroyed all the pirate's defenses. "_Damn, I sure am good at turning things to my favor_", he thought, praising charming.

"Fine, I submit, your wisdom is beyond that of humans. But tell me, we can still take her after all this, can't we? As a source of information, just that.",pointed the pirate with a mischievous smile.

"As incredible as always, my friend, that's an excellent idea. Say it with me, James!",said the charming one (although now there was no telling who was charming and who was pirate), putting one arm on the pirate's shoulder.

"WE'LL TAKE HER!",exclaimed the two at the same time.

_"What's happening here?_", thought James, while the two consciences started dueling with their swords and praising each other with every lunge. _"Like hell that's my internal fight"._ He didn't want to admit that he was actually concerned about those matters, but he was too tired to stop those replicas of himself. His vision was becoming blurred and he couldn't hear them shout anymore, he was slowly falling asleep.

-BOOM!- something exploded outside the cave. He fell from the bed and remained there, startled. He crawled to the door and looked outside. Far away from where he was, to the sunflowers field, the fireworks kept exploding in the sky. Who could be firing those at this hours? He hadn't heard anything of it during the day, and it was strange because the fairies loved this kind of performances. They sure were beautiful. _"I don't care"_, thought James, and then he returned to the bed. _"It doesn't concern me anymore, I'm departing tomorrow after all"_. And he fell asleep.

…

Zarina and her friends watched another explosion fill the dark sky with bright and colorful patterns.

"Are you sure this is alright? What if someone wakes up?", said Iridessa to her friends.

"Again with this?", exclaimed Vidia. "You are the one who came up with the idea!"

"Don't worry Iridessa",said Tinkerbell "only someone with a really bad conscience would be up this late."

"Then Fairy Mary is going to be angry with us tomorrow.", interrumped Rosetta.

"Do you still think she was the one to eat all those cakes?", asked Fawn, as they started laughing.

"What are you thinking about, Zarina?", said Silvermist to her quiet friend.

"I'm telling you, she's thinking about a certain captain…", said Rosetta with a naughty smile.

"Don't be stupid! That's not even a fun joke.", protested Zarina, but all her friends grinned when she blushed. "I was just thinking that it would be great if this peacefulness could last forever."

"Yeah,", said Fawn "this week's been pretty fun."

"If you skip the two pirate's attacks, and the fact that we have one of them running wild in the Hollow."

"Oh Vidia, always so optimistic, aren't you?", said Tinkerbell.

The friends stayed to watch the fireworks for one entire hour, and all of them, even the pessimistic one, wished for every day to be as happy as that one. They would have to postpone that dream, because a certain captain had plans for the next day, and they weren't going to be exactly peaceful.


	14. Storing Day

Storing Day

She looked at the scenery in front of her and smiled. It was being a busy day but everyone seemed so cheerful. Ria and Lonny were experimenting with some ideas she had had, as lively as always. She was sitting in a desk up in the balcony of the library, surrounded by books that Lonny brought to her from the shelves below. All the alchemists were flying from here to there, making the machines work and continuously storing new dust. The Factory wasn't always so lively, it usually was more of a quiet place, but that day was the Storing Day, which happened once a month, when they filled the reserves of pixie dust. It was a big event, and fairies with all kinds of powers came to the Dust Mill to help. The dust keepers carried pixie dust to the Factory, the water fairies helped with the river flow to speed the process, wind fairies made sure that not even a speck was lost, and the tinkers provided material and revised the machines in case some of them broke. To Zarina, who had more than enough motives to doubt people's capability of collaborating, that day of the month seemed magic.

"Hey, be careful with that! Do you want to make that machine explode?" Zarina turned in the direction of the voice just in time to see another tinker get scolded by Burrell, who was in charge of the repairing division. She always came to help on the Storing Day. The logical thing would have been for Tinkerbell to go, because of her good relationship with Zarina, but Burrell had asked to substitute her, nobody knew why. She was now talking to Glowen, a tall and blond sparrow men who had been of the firsts to become an alchemist. Zarina was starting to think that he was that "why" nobody knew. But well, since they had started talking Burrell's scolding had become a little less harsh, so no one complained.

"Zarina, Vidia wants to talk to you, she's outside helping the carriers.", said Glowen approaching her after he had parted with Burrell, who was still looking at him with a stupid face. Ria awoke her to reality, asking if she could help with a machine, and smiled innocently when Burrell noticed she had been caught and blushed. Zarina tried not to laugh because of it, her two black haired helpers had a pretty funny way of helping others.

"I'll go right now, thank you Glowen." She flied to the exit and grabbed her notebook from a small table that was near the door and revised the things she had been noting during the morning, while she walked outside. Vidia was controlling some small twisters she had put on the edges of the road to prevent the dust from falling to the ground.

"Vidia, did you want to see me?", shouted she to the fairy.

"Ah, Zarina, here you are!" She told Zephyr, the other fast fairy, to replace her and descended to meet with her friend. "Hey, you should tell that tinker friend of yours not to stick her nose in someone else's work. Can you believe she came here to tell me that my tornados should be larger? Who does she think she is?" She was probably talking about Burrell. Everybody knew Vidia wasn't too friendly with the tinkers, but in this case she and Tinkerbell agreed in their hate for Burrell. Tink's reasons were that she thought Burrell was after Terrence because she had seen them talking "too friendly", although the true reason was that they had been born almost at the same time and they were good friends. As for Vidia's reasons, you could say their characters didn't match: Burrell believed in the hard work (sometimes "too hard" work), and Vidia believed in the importance of one's gift. So what hadn't been enough to prevent Tink and Vidia from becoming friends, had ended up creating a awful relationship between her and Burrell. None of their friends cared much, because in the end their fights were nothing more than words, and Zarina almost enjoyed seeing how the two fairies criticized each other for the exactly same things.

"Did you call me only to talk about Burrell?", said Zarina.

"Of course not, she's not worth wasting my time with." She was truly angry, how cute. "I called you because Cathy was looking for you." Cathy was a chubby and red haired fairy who worked in the tinker's library.

"Where is she?", asked Zarina.

"She's waiting for you up there.", answered Vidia while pointing to the top of the hill behind the Dust Mill. "You know, she doesn't like crowded places.", added the fast fairy while putting one finger on her head and rotating it to say that she believed the librarian was crazy. Zarina didn't like it, although she also thought that Cathy was a very peculiar person, but she laughed a little when she realized that Vidia's gesture had been exactly the same as Burrell's when she talked about Cathy. They truly were alike. _"That must be why they are always arguing"_, thought the alchemist as she parted with Vidia and flied to the top of the hill.

She reached it in no time. Up there the voices of the fairies below were only a quiet murmur, and she could easily hear Cathy's wings flapping rapidly, she always did that when she was nervous. She found her standing on the road that leaded to the sunflowers field, holding a big book with both her hands.

"Hi Cathy, what brings you here? Vidia told me you were searching for me?" The fairy tried to answer but she was so nervous her glasses almost fell from her tiny nose, and she had to leave the book on a rock to put them back. Zarina waited patiently.

"I… I didn't know wh… who I must tell th… this, bu… but you are in charge of tha… that p… p… pirate, no? A… and I tho… thought you would be he… here, so I came…" Zarina was starting to lose it.

"What happened Cathy, did James do something?"

"Y… you k… know I do… do… don't like to complain…" That was a total lie, Cathy always came to her claiming that her fellow alchemists had damaged the books she had lent to them, and for what she had heard from Tinkerbell she did the same with everyone. And the worst part was that almost all the times the culprit was none other than her pet, a silkworm who "worked" in the library. "bu… but the other day", resumed Cathy. "I… I was in charge of him a… and whe… when he left I found that someone had damaged thi… this book." She picked the book and opened it to show the inside pages to Zarina. The alchemist looked at it and then sighted.

"Don't you think this look more like worm bites?", she said. Truth was, there wasn't a page of the book which hadn't been eaten by the worm. Cathy blushed and then she passed some pages to show her another think.

"N… no. I… I mean this one." Indeed, the page she had stopped in hadn't been eaten. In fact, there wasn't any page, someone had ripped it off. "Thi… this was su… supposed to b… be a map o… of the Hollow." Zarina looked at the book, and then she turned to look down below, to where all the fairies were working peacefully. She wouldn't let that magic day go to waste.

"Thank you Cathy, you are a big help. Don't worry, I'll take care of it, we'll make sure he pays for doing that to your book." And then she left to the Pixie Tree. Cathy looked at her and then opened her wings. She rarely used them, but the book was too heavy to walk with, so she had no other option. It took her a big effort, but finally she could open her two enormous wings, which were three times larger than normal ones. It was rare among fairies to have such big wings, so she tried not to show them often, but they were very useful for carrying heavy things, and that's why she had been assigned the librarian's post. She didn't like leaving the library because it meant showing her secret to others, but she was happy to know that the evil who had done that to the book was going to be punished. _"I hope Wormy isn't feeling lonely, he's such a good boy…"_.

James was working at the tinkers shelter, packaging the materials that were going to be delivered to the Mill. He would have had to work harder in the Mill, but there were a lot of people there and it would have been easy to lose sight of him, so they had decided to keep him in a safer place. Zarina was now fling towards his cell on the road to the courtyard to retrieve the map she was sure he kept there, when she saw a watcher flying at great speed.

"Horace! Where are you going?" The sparrow men stopped midair and tried recovering his breath. He seemed very nervous, and Zarina started to fear the worst.

"Zarina, glad I met with you. I'm on my way to see the Queen, the pirates have returned!" She felt depressed. Suddenly the map's accident wasn't important anymore, her day was ruined anyways.

"I… I'm going then.", said Horace as he started to fly again.

"Wait! I have something to ask of you." The watcher looked at her suspiciously but listened. "If possible", said Zarina. "make it so that James doesn't know what's going on. I have reasons to think that he's scheming something, and if he knows his crew is coming he'll try to run away for sure."

"So what should we do?"

"Tell Clarion to alert everyone with discretion. Suspend the Storing Day but make it like it has already finished. I'll distract James so you all can start preparing the defenses. It's very important that everyone remains calm, do you understand?"

"Yes, no problem." And then he left.

Tinkerbell saw Zarina arriving at the shelter and immediately thought something was wrong, her friend never left the Mill in days such as that.

"Zarina, what brings you here? Is something wrong with the materials we send you?" The fairy wanted to tell her friends about the pirates, but she noticed James looking at them so she answered casually.

"No, nothing wrong, I just wanted to see how you were doing here.", she said while dragging Tinkerbell apart to talk to her privately.

"What happens? Why can't the others hear?"

"Tink, the pirates are going to attack us again." Her friend looked at her for a while and then to the workers at the yard.

"And you don't want him to know."

"Cathy found a book that was missing a page with a map of the Hollow, and she has reasons to think that James was the one who took it."

"And you think if he knew the pirates were coming he would try to run away."

"Exactly."

"So, what's your plan?"

"Horace has already gone to warn Clarion and the ones at the Mill. They will start preparing for the counterattack while we distract James. We'll make it so that it seems the work here is finished, and once he has returned to his cell we can stop pretending."

Tinkerbell nodded and they both walked to the yard. She left to talk with Fairy Mary, who was in charge of the team which had remained, and Zarina went to were James was. When he saw her, she would have sworn that he looked happy. He was planning something for sure.

"Hi James, how are your labours today? More suited to your physical condition?" She was trying to tease him, she felt safer dealing with his angry self. But, to her surprise, James's mood did not decline.

"It truly is good to have some easy jobs from time to time." He seemed truly happy, it was almost creepy. She tried her next trick.

"Tink told me that you are almost finished here, so I thought we could have lunch together." For some time now James had been avoiding spending time with her alone, and he hadn't been in the Dust Fabric for three days. Zarina had deduced he thought that convincing her friends was still more efficient than a direct combat with her, so having lunch the two of them alone had to be a bad thing for him. But, instead of the pretended smile full of hate she had expected to see, James's eyes shined with happiness.

"As you command.", answered the pirate while he took a new load and carried it to the packaging zone. There was no doubt, he was planning something. But she couldn't stop her heart from beating faster as she blushed. She was prepared for the angry James, but not to see how happy he was at the thought of having lunch with her, she hadn't seen that coming. She tried not to seem too happy herself.

"Ok then, I'll come to pick you up."

"James, work's finished here.", said Fairy Mary, followed by Tinkerbell, who had just informed her of the situation. "We don't have any other tasks for you this morning, so you'll wait in your cell until lunch time." James left the pieces he was carrying and sighted. It was obvious that he didn't want to return to the cave, but he didn't protest either.

Two fairies came and were about to tie him but Zarina gave them a warning gaze and they left the ropes and just escorted him to the road that leaded to his cell. They never tied him now so if they were to do so he would notice something was off. James entered the cave and then they heard someone shouting. It was Fawn, who was flying towards them.

"Zarina, we can't wait any longer, the pirates are almost here!"

Zarina quickly turned before James could understand what was going on.

"Tink, close the gate!", she shouted, and the tinker quickly pushed the door so that James couldn't open it.

"Ok, now let's go.", said she to the others. "Are the catapults ready?"

"Yes, everyone is waiting for your orders.", answered Fawn.

Before they left to the tree she looked at James one last time and saw his hatful expression. _"Yes, that's his true self"_, thought she to herself and then she sighted and followed her friends to the battle.


	15. The Third Attack

The Third Attack

"What's the situation Horace?" The sparrow man was looking through a telescope that Twire had brought to the platform at the top of the tree. There were seven fairies on the terrace: Zarina, who was supposed to lead the battle as sort of a captain, Tinkerbell, Vidia and Glimmer, who had been assigned to be the commanders, Horace, the watcher, Twire, to help with the big catapult, and Fawn. The answer didn't come so Zarina asked again.

"Horace, the situation?" He finally left the spyglass and looked at her with confusion.

"They were disembarking just a few seconds ago, but now they are gone!" Zaria took the telescope and looked through it, but the watcher was right. The ship was deserted but she couldn't see anyone on the forest that leaded to the Hollow. _"What now?"_, she thought.

"This looks fishy… don't let your guards down, we must be prepared for anything. Vidia, get the other five wind fairies and go search for the pirates. If you find them return immediately, be careful not to approach them too much."

"Yes!", answered she while she left so fast nobody saw her.

"Tink and Glimmer, take those bags of pixie dust that are at the door of the laboratory and distribute them through all the catapults. The storm powder can be delivered to the storm fairies directly."

"Yes!", replied Glimmer before taking the bag with the grey dust and going to were her comrades were waiting, while Tinkerbell took the other bags. Zarina kept dealing the tasks.

"Horace, can you communicate with the other watchers? Tell them to look for the pirates and the fast fairies."

"I'm on it.", replied he. He took a whistle he had hanging on his neck and blew. Soon a small but fast bird landed on the railing besides him, waiting for a note to be delivered. Zarina nodded in approbation and then she turned to stop Tinkerbell before she left the terrace.

"Wait, Tink. Can you inform of the situation to the others? And tell someone to go inform the Queen."

"Okay!", answered the tinker before she jumped out of the platform.

"Em… Zarina?" The alchemist stopped ordering around and looked at Fawn, who had put a hand on her shoulder.

"You told me that the next time the pirates attacked I should come here but, what exactly am I supposed to do?"

"Ah, yes, don't worry, I'm not forgetting about you.", replied her captain while smiling. She had obviously forgotten. "Twire, I'll come help you in a moment!", said she while she dragged Fawn inside the laboratory. She opened her "Pixie Dust Rainbow" book, which was a copy from the one she had on the Factory, and went to the start of the dark colors. She then showed a concrete recipe to Fawn. The fairy's eyes widened as she read the title.

"Is that the brown powder you've been distributing?"

"Yes, but don't worry, I took the necessary precautions. There's an alchemist at every catapult and they know how to use it. Also, I've provided them with gloves so that nobody except the targets will be affected."

"Do you know how dangerous this could be? Most of the fairies's works are sustained by the help of animals, if this powder were to expand…"

"I know, but it'll be alright, I promise. Anyway, if a worst-case scenario were to happen, I made it so that the effects will only last about thirty-six hours." Fawn nodded and then she looked at her.

"What do you need me to do?"

…

The path they were following was a harsh one. The ground was abrupt and the plants stood in their way in the most annoying ways. But if that was needed so that the fairies couldn't locate them, then it was good. Smee leaded the group, not because he wanted, but because the crew had commanded it, just in case something dangerous was before them. He couldn't complain, because he had been the one to reproach them abandoning their captain with those fairies, but he couldn't stop trembling and sweating. Only God knew what magic were going to use this time those creatures.

They reached their target in only twenty minutes, and they still hadn't been found. The pirates looked at the dam and their mouths fell open.

"You're kidding!", exclaimed one of them. "You mean to tell me this is the work of those little bastards?" Smee nodded while holding his red cap with trembling hands.

"Well, whatever.", answered another pirate. "Let's blow it up!"

The cheers of the crew resonated in the woods while they put the barrels with dynamite on its base. This was their newest plan. Attacking the fairies head on had ended up being a pretty bad idea, last time they have spent three days washing the itchy powder away, so they had resorted to what they always did. But their captain wasn't there for consulting so they had leafed through James's documents(Smee had) and they had discovered a plan he had wrote about how to flood the Hollow by destroying the dam. It was Captain Hook's idea, so it couldn't fail. Or that's what they had thought.

It was good that they still had some faith in James, and Smee had somehow managed to keep them entertained the past week, but if they didn't find him within this attack, the pirates were surely going to riot.

"_This isn't good for my nerves."_, thought the scared sailor while they all hid behind a big rock. _"What's keeping you so long, Captain?"_

One of the pirates lighted up the wick of one of the barrels, and then he jumped to where his companions were before it burned down.

…

The explosion reached not only Vidia and her party, but the entirely Hollow, and when the explorers went to see what had caused it, it was already too late. The dam had banished and the overflowing waters advanced through the forest tearing the plants and removing the rocks.

"Zarina!", shouted Vidia, who had moved from the explosion to the Great Tree in one second. "The dam's been blown! We have to stop the water no matter what, if it reaches the Winter Woods it could cause another freeze!" The freeze they had had was one of the biggest disasters recorded in the Hollow's history, and it could have ended in tragedy if the winter fairies hadn't interfered. What had started it had been a snow machine which had united the two shores and had helped the winter advance. This time, if the river at the bridge part was flood, the two climates would melt again even faster thanks to the water acting as a conductor. Zarina's mind spent two seconds analyzing all this information before she hurried inside and took a belt identical to the one she always wore, but with the sections where she put the pixie dust a lot bigger. Then she took a jar full of blue powder, and flied to where Vidia was.

"Horace, tell the alchemists to come to the post before the bridge that goes to the winter.", shouted she before Vidia and her flew away.

When the message arrived to the platform were Tinkerbell had stayed, she immediately started organizing the pixies left at the catapults to attack the pirates while the water fairies went to try stopping the river. With the alchemists also gone they could only use the powders which Zarina had given them. The brown one, Zarina had already explained to her how it worked, but Fawn had told her that the preparations weren't ready, so she had to do something else. For starters, if they wanted to work with animals they had to disable the pirate's guns. With the fairies they never used guns, because it was pretty hard hitting them, but with bears or even squirrels it was a different think. So she flied to where Glimmer was.

"The pirates have been located.", told she to her fellow commander. "They are approaching the Tree, Horace will give you the exact point. You should distract them and get them wet before they arrive here."

"Understood.", said Glimmer. "Storm fairies, follow me!"

"And now,", said Tinkerbell while turning to look at the catapults. "all the tinkers, point the catapults to the river, and prepare the green dust!"

Just as it sounds, the bags Zarina had chosen for that battle weren't the same as the ones used in the last one. She had considered the small but possible case in which the pirates had already found a way to combat the itchy powder, and she had replaced the pink dust with the green one. In reality, it wasn't exactly meant to be used in battle, but in the tinker's workshop, because it's main power was, as impossible as it may seem, to slow down time. It had taken six months for the alchemists to develop it and, so far, it was still a trade secret how they had obtained it. Like many of the most powerful pixie dusts, it's effects only lasted five minutes maximum, but Zarina could manipulate it to last less. This was their trump card, and it would provide them with the time they needed to prepare the counterattack.

…

Meanwhile, below them, inside the Pixie Dust Tree, the Ministers and the Queen were also working on the defense. After the second attack they had reinforced the guards, the watchers, and they had asked the alchemists to prepare more offensive powders, which had been successfully stored that morning. But with the dam being destroyed, all their strategies had gone to waste. Zarina had informed them of the new plan a while ago, but they still had a lot to discuss.

"Boil them! Set a fire and burn them to a crisp! Do you know how hard it was for my tinkers to build that dam?" Fairy Mary was, like everyone had noticed, of the opinion that the pirates had to pay for what they were doing, and that the fairies could stop being nice. She was blazing with anger.

"Don't worry Mary,", said Clarion, trying to calm her. "they won't escape unscratched this time. But first we have to concentrate in a way to chase them away. Lord Milori, you said you had an idea?"

"Yes.", said firmly the sparrow man. "The river also flows besides the Winter Woods, so maybe us the winter fairies could make a provisional ice dam. Of course, if we aren't careful, this could also end with another freeze. That's why I would like to know the opinion of the Ministers before acting."

"It could be dangerous, indeed.", agreed the Autumn Minister.

"Isn't there a plan which doesn't end with my beautiful flowers frizzing to death?", asked the Spring Minister.

"I don't have any other plan,", added the Summer Minister. "but I think I have an idea to make Lord Milori's plan safest."

"We are listening, Sunflower, tell us your idea.", said Clarion.

"I was thinking,", started she. "that if the light fairies pointed the sun's rays to the opposite shore of the winter, maybe we could refrain the ice from expanding to the warm territories." The silence followed this sentence while everyone thought about it, but suddenly a messenger entered the room and went to talk with the Queen.

"Queen Clarion, Ministers, Zarina has asked for this message to be delivered to you. She would like to ask for your permission to use "that" technique she's been practicing with the alchemists." The seven leaders looked at each other with surprise. It had been so long since that time when the Head Alchemist had been given permission to experiment with "that" technique that they had already completely forgotten it. Truth was that they hadn't even thought that she would put it into practice, and now they were told that she was planning to use it in battle. The messenger, who hadn't been told what the secret technique was, felt surprised to see their worried expressions.

"You know what will happen once every fairy learns about this, don't you? It could start a revolution.", hastened to point Hyacinth.

"I agree.", said Redleaf. "It could become a disturbance in the balance of powers."

"But, as I recall, it's been a while since we last had a problem with this, and it is a very infrequent problem, isn't it?", asked Lord Milori, who wasn't as familiar with those matters, since he had only left his isolation a few years ago.

"Yes,", added Fairy Mary after looking at the Spring Minister with severity. "That problem was solved and it even developed in a progress to us."

"She's right Hyacinth, you were very satisfied with how that incident ended. And, besides, some more power is needed to stop those waters.", added Sunflower. The Ministers of Spring and Autumn didn't seem convinced. Queen Clarion insisted.

"I would like to remind to the presents that we already agreed to this. We all found Zarina's precautions enough to prevent any danger. This is no time to hesitate, every second we lose here is an advantage to the pirates."

"May I, your majesty?" Everyone looked at the sparrow man who had quietly listened to all the conversation so far. Fairy Gary stood up and addressed the others. "I may not be one to talk, but I would like to point how harsh this committee has been with Zarina in the past. It's true that she once caused a disaster, but we were also to blame for not believing in her. All the progress we have achieved this past years was thanks to her amazing ideas, she didn't betray our expectations. In exchange, we promised to be more open, and now the time to prove ourselves has arrived. Zarina said this technique was safe, and I'll trust her because, even if letting her do it means a change in our lives, I'm sure it'll also mean progress."

They all looked at each other with surprise. Fairy Gary started to blush a little, but his seriousness didn't go away. Finally, Hyacinth and Redleaf sighted and nodded.

"I can't object to anything of that.", resumed the Spring Minister. Fairy Mary and Queen Clarion smiled, pleased.

"Then it's set. Tell her that she has our permission.", ended Queen Clarion. The messenger nodded happily before leaving the room. They all looked at the table and Lord Milori pointed at the map of the Hollow they had before them.

"Let the true battle begin."


	16. That Technique

**Hi there, it's me again! It's starting to get difficult to finish this last attack. Every time I think I'm finished I think of new ideas to introduce and it gets larger and larger. I was planning on finishing it in this chapter but well, you'll have to wait one more week :p In Exchange I made it a bit longer than usual, I hope your enjoy it!**

**To the Guest review for chapter 15: Yes, it was Smee, thanks for telling me :) I think I have some other mistakes with names, I'll change them bit by bit.**

**To the other Guest for chapter 15: I didn't have any swordfight on mind, but I'll think about it.**

"That" Technique

Once every alchemist had been gathered, Zarina started her explanation. A minute ago they had seen the green dust fly towards the river, so she had four minutes left to prepare everything before the waters started to flow again. She stood on a rock while the others looked at her. Ria, Lonny, Glowen and Mina helped her.

"Ok, everyone!", started Zarina. "Now that we are all reunited here, I'm going to clarify some rumors that have been going around. Yes, we only have four minutes before the river arrives. Yes, if we can't stop the water it may cause another freeze. Yes, we are going to use "that" technique to help the water fairies and no, we don't have the necessary fairies to safely use it but yes, we are going to take the risk because, if our estimations are correct, using it for just a few minutes won't cause too much damage. Any questions about this point? "A sparrow man raised his hand. "Gritel?"

"Yes umm, Zarina, what are we supposed to do once we transform?"

"Mina will explain that.", said Zarina. Her friend stepped forward.

"The mission is to divert the waters so that they don't reach the bridge, and for that we'll all follow Lauren's indications." The water sparrow man landed besides her to introduce himself to the other fairies. When the experiments with "that" technique had began, Silvermist was at Mainland, so Lauren had been the one to help the alchemists. He had long black hair which he never let down and, although he wasn't taller than Mina, he was pretty strong. He was usually shy, but in emergency times he was the most reliable pixie. Mina thought that that made him resemble Lord Milori, except that he was shorter and not as pale as a winter fairy.

"Now I'll proceed.", resumed Zarina. "If any of you feels like you can't do it, you have to tell us now, because there'll be no turning back later." Since no one replied, the operation started. Zarina distributed the blue pixie dust through her four aiders and they all flew above the alchemists who were waiting on the floor. Zarina looked at them and felt reassured for the first time since the pirate attack had been notified, because she knew that if anything went wrong, they would surely help her. After all, they weren't four pixies chosen at random, they were her most trustworthy fellows, and the first ones to ever become alchemists after her. She closed her eyes one last second and remembered how they had all met.

Two years ago, when Fairy Gary had just offered to create the section of the alchemists and the Fabric was already constructed, Zarina had started to feel lonely for the first time. Tinkerbell and the others were always visiting her, but being all alone in her new place of work was harsh. At that time the Fabric wasn't as big as it was now, it only consisted of a main hall with only one machine and a much smaller warehouse, with no library. She loved researching and now she had a big desk where she could put all her inventions and try new pixie dusts as she pleased, but having no one to share it with was still depressing. At first everyone had come to visit her, but soon they had had to return to their jobs and they had lost interest in what she did. Those were the hardest days for her. Every time she heard a new dust keeper had been born she wished for him/her to become an alchemist, but she was never successful. Until one day, when she was already sure she would be the only alchemist in the Hollow's history, a sparrow man came into the Fabric. He had pale brown hair with red reflections and light brown eyes. He was a bit taller that Zarina and not too thin, but he wasn't fat either. He looked at each part of the hall with curiosity, and that made Zarina think she had found her first fellow, until he started to talk.

"Hi, my name is Claude, I was born two days ago and I'm a dust keeper. Are you the pirate fairy?" He asked it as if it was nothing, looking at her with that curious look that made her feel as if she was a rare specimen of an exotic animal. She wasn't expecting that kind of question so she didn't know what to reply.

"I guess I am…" And then Claude suddenly took her hands and shook them with enthusiasm.

"It's a pleasure to meet you! I heard there was a fairy that had lived with pirates and when I learned what pirates were, I felt like I just had to meet you!" Zarina was starting to feel uncomfortable. _"So he's not here to become an alchemist after all."_ She let go of his hands and turned back to search for something.

"Well, now you've already met me, so I suggest you return to the Mill, because I have things to do." She took the jar she needed and then returned to the desk thinking that he would be gone by then, but Claude was still looking at her with… admiration?

"Can I help you with something?", he asked. She sighted and then she pointed to where the warehouse was.

"Bring me some pixie dust, please." She thought it was the fastest way to get rid of him. He would do some work and then he would get tired of it and go away, like the others had done. But the more she asked for his help the more he was disposed to do, and after a while she let him stay. He then started to ask her questions about her live at a pirate ship, about the pirates themselves, and about her new job. She hadn't talked about the past year with anyone yet, because she thought the fairies would hate her if they learned more, but Claude didn't seem disgusted, he was only curious. They spent hours and hours working and talking until they weren't working anymore, it was only Claude listening to Zarina's adventures as she let go of everything she had kept inside her for so long. When they realized the time it was, the sun had already set. Claude thanked her for the stories and she thanked him for the help, and they parted. But as he was walking to the door he turned around one last time and looked at her with decision.

"Hey, Zarina." She left the book she was writing and looked at him. "Would you mind if I became an alchemist?" It took her so by surprise that she only opened her mouth, but couldn't answer. Claude smiled and then he waved his hand. "See you tomorrow!"

And that's how Claude became her first companion. After a few days he brought Mina to the Fabric saying "She admires your work so much, but she's too proud of herself to come and ask you.". Mina tried to look cool but it was difficult to defeat Claude's stubbornness so she ended up joining the alchemists and they also became good friends. Glowen's case wasn't Claude's idea. He had been chased away of the dust keepers because he kept flirting with every fairy, so he had tried joining the alchemists instead. Luckily for him Zarina and Mina weren't as easy to trick as the fairies he had deceived so far, so he had been able to stay enough time to discover that he loved alchemy. The four of them, Zarina, Claude, Mina and Glowen, became best friends, and thanks to their enthusiasm the Fabric became a much lively place, which attracted new members every now and then. Ria was born five months after that, but she didn't join the group until Lonny was born. They weren't founders like the other four, but their characters and abilities were so exceptional that they soon became respected by everyone and entered the group. From then on the five alchemists had leaded the Fabric and, and they were the only ones allowed to enter Zarina's private laboratory, specially Claude. And in times of battle such as that one, they helped Zarina like good friends.

"_It's such a shame that Claude isn't here to see this."_ Thought Zarina. _"He would have loved to see our technique used in a real battle."_ She then took a handful of blue powder and sprayed it on the fairies below her. The other four did the same. The shiny and blue rain fell on them and, as it touched their shoulders, their outfits started to change color. The commanders then sprayed themselves, and once everyone had transformed they looked at each other, expecting some tragedy to occur, but nothing happened.

"And now, water fairies, follow me!", shouted Lauren, and they all flew to were the real water fairies were waiting.

…

Glimmer was hiding behind a tree, waiting for the pirates to pass by. They had discovered that, when spayed with storm dust, the pirates became like a target for their rays, so ten storm fairies had hidden alongside with her to make a surprise attack. The footsteps were drawing near so she made a signal to one fairy to get ready. They flew above the trees and waited. One pirate came out of the woods. He didn't seem as ferocious as the ones they had seen before and he was trembling, but he had a gun so they didn't take him lightly. More pirates followed him, and when Glimmer was sure no one was missing, they started the attack. The pirates saw how the powder poured down on them, but they couldn't do anything. And it didn't look like they wanted to do anything either. They were ignoring them and trying to advance as fast as they could before the rays came. Glimmer noticed that and rapidly threw the first ray. Her comrades followed her example, but not even the burns of the rays stopped the pirates. Instead, they drew their pistols and pointed at the sky.

"We need to make it rain!", shouted she to her fellows. "If we get their guns wet they'll become useless." But, unfortunately, making rainy clouds was much more slow if you didn't have, for example, a dam full of water to use. So, while the storm fairies started creating the clouds, they were defenseless. Glimmer flew to join them, but then she heard a gunshot and someone pushed her aside, just in time for her to see the bullet pass besides her. The sparrow man that had saved her dragged her behind a tree to hide from the pirates. It was Rumble.

Rumble had been her partner at the Pixie Hollow Games since the first time she had participated, but the year of the so called Game of the Garden Fairies they had had an intense quarrel and had stopped talking to each other. Glimmer had never participated again, although she helped with the contestants training. Rumble had continued to participate for two more years but with the third consecutive lost he finally left the competition. Glimmer would have been pleased to fix their relationship, but he proved to be as childish as always, so she had desisted. Anyways, she still thought he was an egoist, it was not like they would need to talk to each other in the future, or that's what she had thought. And now there they were, looking at the pirates with no way to help their friends and nothing to talk about.

"At least you could thank me.", said the sparrow man, still looking at the pirates.

"Oh, of course Rumble, you're still the fastest." She sighted and flew to the next tree to follow the men below them. The sparrow man followed her. He wasn't talking anymore. Maybe she had been too harsh. He sure was making an effort by talking to her despite his ego. Glimmer remembered something her friend Abbey had told her long ago. "He misses you." She had said. "It's not like he directly thinks of you, but you were the one with whom he spent most of his time, training for the Games. Of course he has a lot of admirers, but because of his character he has no true friends. And the saddest thing is that he'll never admit he needs you, even if he has to spent the rest of his live alone. Abbey had said it to ridicule him, but it was true. And even so there he was, following her just after saving her live. Don't misunderstand, Glimmer was also very competitive, she hadn't been one of the eternal winners of the Pixie Hollow Games for nothing, and she didn't like to lose, but this time, like in the garden fairies win, she felt like it was the right thing to do.

"Hey Rumble.", said she, still observing the pirates. "I don't think I can keep the pirates distracted enough time for our comrades to finish those clouds. Can you help me?" With that she was admitting she needed his help, and with his ego that was dangerous. She could see Rumble struggling to not let his enormous pride show itself. They flew to were the others were, and prepared to fire. The other fairies looked at them with surprise.

"Hey, isn't that the famous pair? They are back together?"

"That's right!", started Rumble. "She's asked for my help, it was unavoidable!"

"Rumble.", interrupted Glimmer. "Don't get too cocky."

"Sorry.", he said. he was truly trying hard not to make her angry. Glimmer smiled and then she looked at him with complicity.

"Where there's lightning…" Her hands started to spin and light started to take form between them. Rumble seemed as happy as a child. He packed his punch and smiled back.

"There's thunder!"

…

The watched the waters approach almost without breathing. The river was running towards them, wild as if it were a water dragon, and much more ferocious. The now duplicated number of water fairies were standing on the way with their hands raised, ready for the impact. The alchemists had practiced with this for a long time, but they had never fought with that much water pressure. Zarina closed her eyes and focused all her strength on her arms. She felt the tremendous hit, but it slowly stabilized. When she opened her eyes, a huge wall of water was standing in front of her. They had done it! The fairies smiled and looked at each other with relieve.

"The fairies at the edge", pointed Lauren who was at the winter's side of the river. "you have to drag the waters to the autumn side to make a deviation and conduct the waters towards the sea." But when the fairies tried to follow his order, the mass of water started to shake, and they had to quickly return to their positions.

"It's no use.", shouted Mina.

"We don't have enough pixies!", continued Glowen. That was a problem. They had thought that by transforming the alchemists into water fairies they would have enough people, but they still needed more.

"Don't worry, we are here to help!" They all turned their heads to were the voice was coming from, and saw a party of winter fairies coming out of the Winter Woods.

"Periwinkle?", said Zarina.

"Lord Milori sent us a message with some instructions to help you.", answered the frost-talented fairy. And then she and her friends flew above the river and started to freeze it.

"Wait!", exclaimed Zarina. "If you do that the freeze will also reach the other shore."

"That won't be happening."

"Iridessa?", asked Zarina, even more surprised. The light fairies, who had just reached the autumn's shore, started to point the rays of the sun towards the ice that had started to cover the floor. It immediately melted. The water fairies slowly released their holding, and the ice barrier resisted. The cheers of joy and the applause filled the air. Zarina flew to where Loren and Mina were.

"Everything that's left is to move the waters to the sea and we'll be finished." Lauren nodded and Mina smiled prodly. But then a scream interrupted them.

"Zarina!" It was Ria's voice. She looked through the crow for her friend, and she spotted her besides a fairy who was shining strangely. _"Oh, no!"_ Thought the alchemist. She flew there immediately to check what was happening. Fay, the fairy who was shining, was hugging her knees and clenching her teeth as if she was in pain. Her dress was continuously changing colors faster and faster. Zarina took some pale yellow dust from her belt and rapidly prayed it on the fairy. The powder adhered to her and started emitting some strange vibrations until a glistening light blinded them. When it disappeared Fay's clothes were white as if she was a new-born, and she fainted. Glowen caught her on his arms before she fell to the ground.

"I think the water fairies will be alright without us from this point on.", he said.

"Yes,", replied Zarina. "We should go back to normal."

It wasn't the first time an incident like that happened. When Zarina had first told her friends that she had the ability to change a fairy's talent, they had all wanted to try. At first they only transformed a few minutes, as a mere game to see who was better at handling the nature powers, but once they had gotten used to it they had started to spent hours with it. Ria, who for some reason had a "good eye" for things such as balance, had started to fear that this changes could end up in a bad way. Of course, her friends hadn't believed her, not even Lonny. They were so proud of their new abilities that they kept that technique a secret to themselves and continued to play. So to prove herself right, Ria had spent an entire day as a fast fairy. When almost twenty hours had passed, and her friends were starting to prepare their "I told you", the incident had occurred. At that time they still hadn't developed the dust to stop it, so Ria had been suffering the exact same hours she had spent as a wind fairy, until she returned to her normal state. And even so she had had to wait an entire wings for her wings to work again.

After that, Zarina had immediately asked For permission from the Ministers to investigate the technique deeply, and she had found out that the trick was in keeping the balance, in other words, you always had to respect the number of fairies of each talent. That was why it hadn't been a problem when she had changed the powers of Tinkerbell and her friends, because they had only exchanged them, and the number of fairies with their talents hadn't varied. The nature made its own arrangements when a new fairy was born, but didn't accept any external changes. And the damage caused didn't only affect the fairies, but the nature itself. So having all the alchemists transform into water fairies had obviously destabilized the balance.

The alchemists landed on the warm shore to make a row and waited to be reconverted. The blue powder Zarina had used was only effective for an hour and, since dust keepers had no specific dust, making the powder to return them to normal was extremely difficult, but Zarina didn't want to take risks so she quickly transformed them back with the bright yellow dust. Just as she finished changing herself back, another scream alerted her. She turned around just in time to see the waters coming at her and dodge them by flying upwards. Luckily no one was drowned.

"Zarina!", shouted Silvermist approaching her. "The water fairies were too tired to control the river and it has escaped. It's running towards the tinkers settlement."

"Well, it isn't that bad.", answered she. "You can remove the water when your energies have recovers, and anyways everyone is already at the top of the Great Tree, so there's no danger."

"But, Zarina", replied her friend. "Aren't you forgetting someone?" Zarina's expresion turned from relaxed to horrified in one second, and then she flew away as fast as if she were a wind fairy. Silvermist and Iridessa followed her.

…

The pirates had almost reached out of the forest and the storm fairies hadn't been able to soak them enough. Glimmer and Rumble were doing an excellent work with delaying them, but they were still advancing. And then, a fluffy and chubby cloud started to raise some miles away. It looked as if someone was evaporating the river. Glimmer didn't stop to think what was going on for someone to want to evaporate the river, she just took some storm fairies with her while Rumble stayed to battle the pirates and went to take the water on those clouds. When they reached the place, they found a strange scenario. It was as if the winter and light fairies were fighting to conquer each other's shores. And to make it worse, even though they had prevented another freeze, the river was now going to flood the tinkers settlement.

"Don't pay any attention to it.", she said to her comrades. "We have to take charge of our part first." They took the clouds and dragged to the west. When the storm they had been creating crashed with the one from the river, a big thunder was heard and it started pouring water fiercely. Sitting on the cloud comfortably, the storm fairies watched the pirates get completely soaked. Glimmer and Rumble smiled at each other and clashed their hands, making another pair of lightning and thunder cross the sky.


	17. Captain Hook

Captain Hook

He was drowning. Everything was dark around him, filled with the water that would soon fill his lungs. The leafs of his bet passed floating besides him and crossed the gate to disappear on the other side. He put his hands on the grating and tried shacking it, but it wouldn't open. What was going on? Just a few hours ago he was planning his escape and now he was about to die, caught in a fairy-sized cage. He was more furious than scared, and the water didn't let him think straight. And suddenly he couldn't endure it anymore. The water hurt while it entered his nose, but after the intense pain had filled him completely, he started to feel sleepy. His vision became blurry, the waters became darker…

"Hurry up Silvermist!", shouted Iridessa while the water fairy opened the waters in front of the cave. Zarina opened the door as fast as she could and took James out of it before Silvermist couldn't resist the pressure and let go. They put him on a rock above the waters. Tinkerbell and Rosseta were also there, they had left the Tree when they had heard that the river was going in the prison's direction. Rosseta put an ear on the pirate's chest and looked at them worried.

"He's not breathing!"

"Let me try!", exclaimed Iridessa while raising her hands above her head.

A sudden hit on his chest made he recover consciousness. He started to spit water, convulsing, and then he lay down. It hurt breathing but at least he was alive. He was surrounded by fairies. Had they saved his live?

"Hey guys, a report from Horace." Vidia landed besides them, she seemed in a hurry. "The pirates are approaching this place. I think they wanted to go to the Great Tree but they got lost because of the storm fairies, and now they are here!"Just as she finished her words, they heard a man's voice.

"What the hell! Guys, we've reached the river again!" A troop of pirates appeared from behind a hill. "I told you this wasn't the way, the Tree shouldn't be near the river." They reached the settlement and then one of them saw Zarina's party.

"Hey, isn't that the fairy which taught everything to our Captain?"

"Yes, yes, she is! We can capture her and make her tell us where that stupid tree is."

"But, wait a second!", exclaimed the first pirate. "Isn't that…?"

"It can't be!", laughed the other one looking at the pixies.

"Smee! Come here at the front!" A much tiny, old and chubby pirate appeared before them. He looked at his fellows first, second at the fairies, and then his mouth fell open.

"Ca… Ca… Captain!" The other pirates pushed him aside to see what they were talking about.

"If it isn't our dear Captain Hook!", laughed the first pirate. James could now recognize him, he was Starkey, and the one that followed him was Bill Jukes. His luck couldn't be worse. Starkey advanced and took James with one hand, squeezing him. Zarina tried to help him, but her friends took her away.

"Are you crazy? If they get you, you are dead.", said Tinkerbell.

"What's happening here?" Fawn came from behind them, which made Iridessa jump scared.

"Fawn!", exclaimed Zarina. "Are the preparations ready?"

"Yes, I came here to tell you. But hey, isn't that James? Why are the pirates trying to kill him?"

"If they take the captain down, the ship is theirs.", answered Zarina.

"How sad.", said Rosseta. "A fitting end for him, I suppose."

"If only we could inform the tinkers at the catapults that they can fire…", said Zarina.

…

Twire was still waiting at the top of the Pixie Dust Tree. Zarina had forgotten about her again, after telling her to wait a second. She had left the catapult and was now talking with Horace while he continued patrolling. He was explaining her how they trained their messenger birds when all of a sudden he let go of the spyglass and looked at her terrified.

"The pirates have found them!" Twire looked at where he was pointing with the telescope, and she saw Tinkerbell and the others hiding from the pirates who were just two meters away from them. They had freed James, but they didn't seem to be celebrating.

"What are we going to do?", shouted Horace while shacking her by the shoulders. She stood up and flew to the catapult. She put on her gloves and prepared the brown dust.

"Are you sure the preparations for that are ready?", asked he.

"I don't know, but we must try.", answered her with determination. "If you don't want your cute bird to hate you, don't get close.", warned she, and then she activated the catapult.

The brown dust flew through the cloudy sky until it impacted on the pirates. They looked around with confusion, and for a moment they stopped bullying James, but they quickly restarted.

"What could we do with him?", asked one of them with a mischievous smile.

"It has to be cruel, like he was with us."

"We could open him with our knives."

"Or we could shoot him down."

"Maybe letting him drown would be the best."

"Cut his head!" They were all so enthusiastic about seeing him dead. Te only one who didn't agree was Smee, but he couldn't stop them.

"I order you to stop this!", shouted James with all his strength. "I'm your Captain!"

"How cute.", replied Starkey. "He's so tiny I can't even hear what he's saying!" They all laughed endlessly. And then, a terrible growl was heard above their cheers. They all turned to the hill that leaded to the woods and saw a big bear appear.

"What's this? What's a bear doing here?" Starkey took his pistol and tried shooting, but the gunpowder was all wet. The bear looked at them angrily, with a truly hateful expression for a bear.

"What's wrong with him? It's looking at us as if we had tried to take his head or something!", said Bill. The animal reached the first pirates, who had drawn their swords and were trying to scare it. But the beast didn't even hesitate, with one blow he pushed them aside and bit one of the pirates who had fallen besides him. The men tried to retreat, but from behind them appeared three wolves. Squirrels, deer, owls, rabbits, foxes, beavers, all kinds of animals started to gather around the pirates with the same hateful look.

"What's going on? What's wrong with these beasts?", cried Starkey while using his comrades to shield himself. At the end, unable to dodge all that clawing, scratching and biting, the pirates run for their lives.

"Where are you going? It's just a bunch of dirty animals!", shouted Starkey as his companions run towards the forest.

"Tell me, how does it feel to see your fellows run away and leave you behind?", teased James, who was still captured by his subordinate.

"What are you laughing about, Captain? You should be worrying about yourself." And, before James could even understand, he threw him to where the animals were and followed his fellows. James fell to the ground brusquely and tried to stand, but the hit had hurt his bag, and he was still weak from nearly drowning. An enormous monster appeared before him, bight teeth, completely black eyes and long and disheveled tails. It tried to bite him but then an even larger monster pushed it aside, it was like twenty times bigger and it had fangs as long as one of his legs. The monsters surrounded him but he couldn't move, still trying to breath normally.

"There he is!" Was that Zarina's voice?

"Hurry up Fawn, they're going to eat him!"

_"__It's too late."_ Thought James. He saw the enormous fangs descend and closed his eyes, waiting for the pain, but the pain didn't come. He slowly reopened his eyes and watched all of Zarina's friends surrounding him, Zarina standing before him and watching Fawn stop the wolf just in time. The animal looked at her with confusion, and then it watched the other beasts which were also looking at their surroundings with confusion.

"Looks like the powers of the brown dust wore out.", pointed Tinkerbell.

"Yes, those animals would have been hard to stop with all that hate.", commented Vidia while holding Iridessa, who had almost fainted because of the tension. They all sighted and watched the animals roar briefly at each other and then disappear in different directions.

Zarina and Fawn took James and they all returned to the courtyard on the tinker's settlement. The waters were gone, and the place was a big mess, all the materials that the tinkers used lay here and there, some broken, and some just wet.

"Tink! Are you guys alright?" Twire and Horace landed besides them and hugged their friends.

"We saw the pirates run towards the Bay!", said Twire.

"We fired some more brown dust, just in case they were thinking of returning.", added Horace.

Little by little the other pixies started arriving and joined the reunion. Everyone explained how they had lived the experience, and how they had contributed on chasing the pirates away. The first ones were Silvermist and the four alchemists, who had ended restoring the river's course. They were all so happy that everything had ended well.

"Zarina." Tinkerbell took her friend by her arm and pushed her away of the others. "I found these around James's cell, it must have floated away when the river came." The alchemist looked at what her friend was holding, and her smile faded away a little. The map of the Hollow was wet, but the escape routes were still visible. She looked at the pirate sitting on the rock away of the crowd, he looked lost and absentminded. He was no longer captain.

"Let's just forget about it for the moment. I think he's already had enough chokes today."

Tinkerbell nodded and they both resumed their conversations with their friends.

...

Smee was the last one to reach the boat, because he wasn't as good in swimming as the others and, besides, the water animals were also somewhat angry with them. Starkey had knocked out a shark before climbing the anchor's rope. They were all trembling and their clothes were all torn and dirty, but most of the pirates were smiling. Smee gulped. The Captain was gone and they all knew it and loved the idea: no one to tell them what to do or where to go, no one obsessed with the revenge and with the fairies, and a big island to explore and conquer. But conquering an island wasn't an easy task, they didn't now who could be watching them besides the fairies, so it was clear what they needed: a brand new Captain.

All the pirates reached this conclusion simultaneously, and they slowly drew their weapons and looked at each other, waiting for someone to start the riot. All of a sudden a pirate jumped on top of the railing and shouted: "I claim this ship to be mine and I name myself as the new Capt..." before a bulled pierced his chest and he fell into the water. After that, the desk became an impressive mess, with swords flying from here to there, guns and canons being shoot and men falling here and there. Smee hid himself in the Captain's cabin, behind the table. And that's how the most fearsome battle for the supremacy of the ship began.

"Looks like they won't bother us for a while, don't you think?", said Glimmer to her comrades, who were watching the pirates from behind a stormy cloud.


	18. James's resolution

James's resolution

He was drowning. Everything was dark around him, filled with the water that would soon fill his lungs. He knew he was in his cell, but he couldn't see his bed, nor the grate. All there was around him was an immense and dark mass of water, like the sea but without any live form besides him. He looked above and saw the surface bathed with sun rays, that was slowly moving away. He tried to swim upwards but his body was too heavy and he continued to sink, with the ocean around him becoming darker and darker. It was a different sensation that the last time he had drowned, it wasn't painful. It was a cold and lonely feeling that soaked him and pulled him down. "_That's true"_, he thought. "_I'm all alone now. No one is going to rescue me._" And suddenly, something pulled him from the shirt and took him out of the water.

The sun warmed him and he could hear the racket of a lot of people coming from above. He looked and saw a big ship behind him. The thing that had saved him was a hook tied to a long rope, which some pirates were pulling to get him on the boat. He couldn't see their faces because the sun behind them hurt his eyes.

"Here he is, here he is boys!"

"Good, he's coming out of the water."

"Hurry up, the show is about to start."

When he finally reached the railing they helped him cling, and he fell on the desk of the ship. When he opened his eyes he couldn't believe what he was seeing. The entire crew consisted of James Hook. The copies of himself were running from here to there preparing the ship for something. He turned around and confirmed that the ones who had rescued him were also himself.

"Be more careful next time, you almost drowned there!", exclaimed one of them, and then they all continued with their work. He stood up and looked through the ship, but he couldn't see anyone different than himself.

"Attention please!", shouted one of the pirates who was standing besides the helm. He was wearing the outfit of a royal messenger, although he still had James's face. "The judge will now proceed with the trial."

The door of the captain's cabin opened, and another James came out of it and approached the railing to address all the James, who were quietly listening from below. He was wearing a wig with white curls, but James could still recognize him. He was the "pirate" James.

"Dear fellows,", started the pirate. "today we are here reunited to judge the actions of one of our comrades, as hard as it may seem." The other James made a sound of surprise and started to whisper between them. "The culprit's been charged with the crimes of betrayal, stupidity, and deception, for he assured nothing bad would happen to us if we followed his orders. And also,", said he while removing his false glasses with a dramatic gesture. "he's been accused of loving someone more than himself."

The whispers of the James became even louder, they looked very troubled by this last sentence. The pirate raised his hands to make them quiet, and then he exclaimed:

"Behold, the culprit!"

They all looked at were he was pointing, above their heads, and saw the "charming" James standing on the foremast with a rope surrounding his neck and his hands tied. All the pirates started to jeer him, shouting and spitting, but he didn't lose his composure.

"Captain James "charming",", started the pirate James. But he was interrupted by the messenger James, who told something to him in low voice. The disguised judge then turned to the audience and said:

"It's true, I can't call him that, for he's no longer Captain."

This time all the James nodded and cried in a dramatic way. "_What's this?"_ Thought James. "_Are we in a comedy?_". The pirate resumed the trial.

"James "charming",", corrected he. "You've been accused of betrayal, stupidity, and deception. What can you say to defend yourself?" He looked at the accused with false seriousness. James could have sworn he was smiling.

"I'm telling you, you are making a big mistake!", started the charming. "This fellow that accuses me, is no better. He comes here saying I'm the one to blame, but when this plan was decided, he was the one to say that we should bring Zarina with us when we returned to our ship!"

All the pirates made and even more surprised sound, and then they started to shout at the pirate.

"Come on, come on friends. Are you going to believe a traitor like him? He even said the forbidden name of that fairy! Am I, or am I not your judge?"

"He's not!", exclaimed someone. They all looked in the direction of the voice and saw another James appear from inside the captain's cabin. He was also wearing a white and curly wig, but someone had tied him from hands and legs. "He's and impostor! He tied me and pretended to be de judge!"

The pirate James tried to run away but three more James captured him. The messenger James helped the judge James untie himself and then the last one took position.

"Let's resume the trial", started he.

"Are you happy?", said the pirate James to the charming one. Now both of them were standing on the foremast with a rope around their necks. "Now we are both going to die."

"It's all your fault.", replied charming. "You were the one to start these stupidity."

"Silence please!", shouted the judge. "James "charming" and James "pirate", you've been accused of betrayal, stupidity, and deception. What can you say to defend yourself?"

"What can I say?", said the pirate. "Do you want to know what can I say? I'll tell you! I say that if we both are culprits, then you are all to blame too. You come here to judge us, but the truth is that you are aaaaall in love with her too!" The James started to whisper, outraged, but he didn't stop. "Who you love you ask? Do you want me to say it?"

"Stop him!", exclaimed the judge. "He's blaspheming!"

"You love Zarina!" The James started to climb the mast to stop him. "Yes, I said it, so what? And I'll say it again! Z-A-R-I-N-A!"

"He's gone berserk!", said the judge, who was blazing with anger. "Shoot him down! Do anything to shut him up!"

In the middle of all the ruckus, our James was starting to feel angry. How could his replicas be so stupid? But then the pirate James stopped shouting. He and the charming one were looking at the see below the ship with a very frightened expression. The pirate started to untie himself while the charming pointed at the water and cried:

"Kra… Kra… Kraken!" And then they both untied themselves and jumped to the water on the oposite side of the ship. All the other James started to panic and jump off too.

_"What a bunch of cowards"_ Thought James, who hadn't moved from besides the railing. _"The Kraken doesn't exist, everyone knows that"_. But he was interrupted by a huge shadow that covered all the ship.

"If it isn't our dear Captain Hook!"

James froze when he recognized the voice. He slowly turned around and looked above. Starkey, immense as the Kraken, was standing besides the ship. The water only covered him up to the waist. He was looking at him with a ferocious smile. James tried to run away, but a giant hand grabbed him and took him away from the boat.

"What should I do with you?", said the monster. He was squeezing James more and more, he almost didn't let him breath.

"S… stop!", managed to say James. "I… I'm… your Ca… Captain."

"How cute.", exclaimed Starkey, laughing. "He's so tiny I can't even hear what he's saying!"

He then brought James closer to his face. James couldn't breath, he was throttling. All he could see was Starkey's scaring smile, and those intense blue eyes…

James woke up brusquely and almost fell from the bed. He was sweating and trembling from feet to head. He sat and looked at the door, it was still night. "_What a rare nightmare."_ He thought. _"And those blue eyes…"_. What he found more strange was that Starkey didn't have blue eyes, so that meant that he was back to his usual nightmares.

The "blue eyes" nightmares had started after his encounter with the black haired friends of Zarina, and he was starting to think that they had something to do with it. Every time he thought of something evil to do, or every time he approached the Fabric too much, those nightmares would haunt him mercilessly. He hadn't thought much of it because he was sure he wouldn't stay at the Hollow for long, but now that it seemed he was going to remain there for two entire months(or more), maybe it was time to investigate those kind of thinks.

James sighted and stood up from his bed, he wasn't sleepy. He went to the gate and looked outside, but no one was there. Since the pirates had banished two days ago, immersed in their own fights, the fairies didn't do guards at night anymore. The night after the attack he had slept on the hospital, just in case, they had said. The truth was that he had hurt his back badly when Starkey had thrown him, and his lungs where still weak from drowning, so he had appreciated it. The fairy on the bed beside him had been Fay, an alchemist who had had some kind of problem with some balance… or something like that. He hadn't understood much of what the doctor had said to her friends, but he had seen that she was unconscious and strangely pale, like her white dress. Zarina had also gone to visit, but she hadn't even talked to him, she seemed pretty worried with her fellow. The next morning he had been discharged because he had no serious wounds apart from the big bruises on his back but, because of the doctor's recommendation, he had been forced to stay in bed an entire day. So there he was, dying from boredom, although he wouldn't have had energies to do anything else.

He sat slowly on the ground by the entrance, and leaned against the wall, trying not to rest on his bruises. He had spent the entire day trying not to think of anything: he had slept more than twelve hours, he had eaten without analyzing what entered his mouth, and he had mapped all the fissures on the cave's walls, so this was the first time he tried to guess what had happened to him, how it had happened, why, and what was he going to do from now on. Too much questions for such a tired pirate, and none of them did really matter to him. Leaving aside the fact that he owned his live to the fairies once again, his only possible method of escaping had been taken away by a bunch of pirates who hated him more than they feared the Kraken. Looking back at his plan, he had to admit that it had been the worst plan he could have come up with. How could he have thought that his crew would accept him in such conditions? It was obvious that they would react like they did, and yet he hadn't seen it. Or he hadn't wanted to see it. Anyway, the fact was that he had rushed too much. Since when did his plans last only a week? His plans used to be ones that needed months of preparations! Perfect and meticulous plans that ensured his victory, with notorious escape routes in case something went wrong. And where was his infallible escape route now?

"_Maybe all this shrinking has also affected my brain"_, he thought as he laughed to himself. He closed his eyes and tried to find out the reason of his rush. It wasn't hard to tell, but it still hurt. He had been scared, scared of his own feelings. He had started to think "_This place is not as bad as I thought."_, or "_This doesn't count as a punishment at all, I actually like doing works like this._", or even "_Maybe it wouldn't be that bad if this game lasted forever.",_ and he had panicked.

"What's the issue buddy? We all panic sometimes."

He opened his eyes and saw "pirate" James before him, rowing. They were on a small boat in the middle of the ocean.

"Yeah, you only have to relax, keep your mind cool, and the answer will come at you.", said the "charming" James, who was sitting behind him, and then he extended his arm and put a shiny object on James's hands. "Arranging your feelings's always been your specialty, hasn't it?"

James looked at the hook he was holding and smiled sadly. It was true, a gentleman should never leave a game unfinished. And he couldn't afford to continue with that kind of attitude. The boat stopped as his comrades put a hand on each of his shoulders, and his smile became evil. Yes, it had been a hard blow, and he was going to need some time to overcome it, but he wouldn't give up that easily. Even if not a captain, he still was James Hook!


	19. Consequences

Consequences

"She isn't here.", said the fairy with the yellow dress.

"But I saw her just a few seconds ago!", replied the garden fairy.

"Let's continue searching, she must be near."

When their footsteps couldn't be heard anymore, Zarina came out from behind the branch where she had been hiding. She looked left and right and when she was sure nobody saw her, she started to run in the field's direction. It was the third time that day that she had had to hide before some fairies assaulted her. She hated to admit it, but the Spring Minister had been right with his forecast: now that all Pixie Hollow knew about her transformation technique, they were all going after her to ask. At first she had tried explaining to them the risks and disadvantages to it, but they had not wanted to understand, so she had ended up running away. And she was not the only one with this kind of problems. The Fabric's doors had been closed down, and the alchemists had holed up in it to continue producing the powders they needed to repair everything, while protecting themselves from the mass of insistent fairies. Luckily, Queen Clarion had forbidden the access to the terrace without Zarina's permission, and she was taking actions to stop the revolt. Even so, Zarina knew they wouldn't stop unless she properly explained everything, so she was now going to meet with Clarion and talk about it. But, before that, she had to go get a certain pirate.

The tinkers hadn't revolted as much as the others, because they all understood Zarina's point since they had already had a bad experience when Tinkerbell had tried to change her give, but there were still some stubborn tinkers who chased the alchemists. That's why going down the road that headed to their settlement wasn't what you would call wise, but she had no other option. She stuck to the wall and walked slowly until she reached the cell. At first she thought the cave was empty, because there was no one in the bed, but then she noticed James just in front of her. He was sitting on the floor beside the gate, snoring. _"He slept here?",_ thought the fairy. They didn't have too much time so she shook him to wake him up. The pirate opened his eyes with surprise and then he looked at her with an inquisitive look.

"Hurry up, the Queen is waiting for us.", whispered she while opening the door. He didn't seem convinced but he still followed her up the road. Just after they had entered the grass, two tinkers blocked their way. Zarina tried to turn but one of them took her hand.

"Don't worry Zarina, it's us.", said Clank.

"Tink sent us to help you, she's working on the dam.", added Bobble. They then stood on James's sides to escort him.

"Thank you, guys.", said Zarina with a smile. She seemed relieved to have someone else to control James. They walked a long path to avoid being noticed, and only started to fly when they reached the flower fields. The sparrow men took James by the shoulders as Zarina led the group.

"So, what does the Queen want from you both?", asked Bobble.

"In fact, I'm meeting with all the Ministers to discuss how to handle all this chaos, I don't know why James was asked to come too", replied she. They landed in the middle of the bushes that surrounded the river. There were some garden fairies crossing the bridge and chatting with each other. The releasing of the autumn had long ended and they had no important roll in the winter, so you could say they were on holidays. Zarina looked out of the bushes and then she turned to the others, who were also kneeling beside her.

"That's the only way to get to the Great Tree. From here on we'll act normally, and if any fairy stops you, just elude them. We'll wait until this ones are gone." The sparrow men nodded. James still didn't understand what was going on. He hadn't seen Zarina since the attack, nor any other fairy, so he didn't know why were they hiding. It looked like she was in a bad situation, most probably because of something she had done during the battle with the pirates. And, besides, for what she had said he wasn't going to be punished, at least not now. That meant they had more important things to deal with, and he was starting to feel very curious about it. He looked at Zarina's tired face, at least he wasn't the only one with problems concerning the pirates. And then he saw something he hadn't noticed, she had a familiar object attached to her belt: a sword. It was more like a sharp pin altered to look like a sword, like the ones she used to make when she was captain. Why was she carrying it around? But just as he was reaching out to touch it, Zarina put a hand on the sword and looked at him with severity.

"You guys go first.", said she to Clank and Bobble. They took James, each one from one arm, and they stepped on the road, Zarina followed them. They didn't find anyone on the road from the bridge to the Tree, but on their way flying to the Main Hall a bunch of fairies intercepted them.

"Zarina, here you are! I thought we would never find an alchemist in all the Hollow. You see, we wanted to ask you about that ability to exchange gives that you have…"

"Sorry guys, but the Queen has requested to see the prisoner and I can't make her wait.", answered Zarina while pushing Clank to continue. "Don't stop, ignore them.", whispered she to the sparrow men. They entered the passage to the room were the ministers were waiting, with the stubborn fairies still following and Zarina making excuses to get rid of them. They finally reached the room, and the guards at the entrance prevented the mob from coming in. The party finally stepped on the floor, catching their breath after all the running away.

"I see you've arrived safely", greeted the Queen. Zarina regained her composure quickly as she bowed in return.

"Yes, it was thanks to them, your majesty." Clank and Bobble bowed too, and James copied them. When he raised his head, his blood frizzed. Hanging on the wall behind the Queen, beside a map of the Hollow, there was his own map of the Hollow, the one on which he had drawn all the escape routes. He was no longer sure that the meeting wasn't for punishing him.

"Come, sit with us. We have a lot to discuss.", added Clarion.

"If you don't mind, your majesty, we'll have to return to our jobs, the dam needs as many tinkers as possible to work in it.", said Bobble.

"Don't worry about that, I already talked with Mary and she says there's no problem. It'll only take a few minutes.", answered she. The tinkers looked at each other, confused. Fairy Mary had been ordering everyone around the dam since the day before, and she had been pretty explicit in her explanation of what would happen to those who didn't help. But it was a royal order so they took sits beside Zarina. James sat on her right, with two guards behind him.

"First of all,", started Clarion, "we'll revise the situation. Like Bobble has pointed, the tinkers are currently repairing the dam, that's why Fairy Mary can't be here today. Most of the damage caused by the river has already been cleared, all the fairies are helping with it, so we could say the repairing issues are already settled." The Ministers nodded in agreement, although some of them seemed to be in a bad mood, specially Hyacinth. "So, living that aside, our more worrisome problems are the whereabout of the pirates, and the various consequences of your transformation technique.", said she addressing Zarina. The Head Alchemist nodded with seriousness, but she couldn't completely hide her concern. "For the good of this reunion, we'll leave that issue for later." The Spring Minister snorted but a warning look from the Queen kept him quiet. Clarion proceeded: "As for the pirate's matter, I had Althea look for them with the help of some fast fairies. Their report was that the pirates have been divided in three groups, one with the boat, another one which is hiding in the forest near the Mermaids Bay, and the last one which have been captured by the Indians on the west."

"I think that for now we should worry about the ones on Mermaids Bay, they are the closest ones.", said Redleaf.

"The scout fairies are already watching them.", said Clarion, "But for what they saw it seems like the pirates are only interested in fighting each other. They are all trying to take control of the ship and they almost never approach the Hollow."

"But we can't be sure they won't attack again.", replied Sunflower. "Maybe we should chase them away of Neverland."

"That would certainly be an option.", said the Queen. "But it would be really difficult, and it's always best for us not to step on the other territories of the island. And, besides, we have already delayed the winter preparations too much." It was true. Lord Milori hadn't been able to attend the reunion because he was helping Snowflake, the Minister of Winter, with those preparations. With the tinkers working at the dam and all the work they had had with the flood, they were running a bit late. "We should first be sure that the pirates are planning an attack. That's why I've asked for him to come." She pointed at James, and everyone in the room looked at him. He seemed confused, and Zarina came to his aid.

"Excuse him your majesty, he's not been informed of anything that's happened since the attack, so he's a bit lost right now." He hated to admit it, but she was right. He had only been isolated for one day and it already seemed as if he had been away for an entire week. He could understand the part about his crew, but he had no idea of what was that "transformation technique". For what he had heard it seemed that the dam up into the river had been destroyed, which made he think that the pirates had followed his own plan in the last attack. But that didn't explain why Zarina seemed so tense every time that prideful Minister looked at her with irritation. So, yeah, you could say he was a bit lost.

"I see.", replied Clarion. "The fact is, Mr. Hook, that the last two attacks your crew did were meant to help with your escape, or at least that's what we thought given that they didn't try to steal the pixie dust. But now that they already found you and not only did they leave you behind but they also tried to kill you, what I'm asking is: do you think they'll come again, for you or for the pixie dust, now that you are no longer their captain?" A hard question and a harsh way to put it, that's what Zarina thought. Of course he already knew what his situation was, but hearing it from one of his enemies was much worse. James looked at the table with vacant eyes. The guards at his sides were waiting for his fury, without understanding that what they had before them wasn't a furious man, but a lost captain, and for a moment James had the same aspect he had had when Zarina had left him in the hospital two days ago.

"They won't." Everyone kept silent as the pirate raised his head and looked at the Queen. "We were only here because I commanded them to take the Hollow, but they didn't have any real interest in the pixie dust. Of course they like the idea of a frigate that flies, but they won't waste their time anymore because of it. I'm pretty sure that right now they only care about taking possession of the ship and sailing the Neverland seas." It was such an accurate and conscious response that it surprised everyone, even Zarina.

"If we trust what he says,", continued the Queen. "We'll be able to relax in the pirates issue from now on."

"Even if he's right, I think it would be wise to still keep them in watch.", added Redleaf prudently.

"Then we'll have the scouts alerted so that we can concentrate in the other problems. Does everyone agree with that?" The Ministers seemed content with it, so Clarion moved to the next thing. She got up and went to the wall where James's map was hanging. She took it and then she addressed its owner: "I've heard from many that you like to think of yourself as a wise man, James Hook, and judging from the words you just shared with us, it seems you are not completely wrong. That's why I assume you've already noticed that your most handy chance of escaping, probably the only one you had, does no longer exist. That's why we have an offer for you." James looked at Zarina but she seemed as confused as him. "Since you've been working with the tinkers all the days, and now that you have no apparent reason to run away, we'll construct you a house in the tinker's settlement. Of course you'll still be monitored and we'll lock you every night, but it's still more comfortable than sleeping on a rock. In exchange, you are to continue with your hard labour under Fairy Mary's surveillance, any hint that you are planning something and you'll be back in your cell in no time. Are you willing to accept this conditions?"

Zarina couldn't believe what she was hearing, Queen Clarion still believed that James had a good side too. Well, having his crew almost kill him had earned him some pity after all. She knew it was a stupidity, but she didn't complain because the more freedom he had the bigger the temptation he'd feel, and the fastest she'd prove he would always be a merciless pirate. Ans, besides, it was funnier to play with him when he had his spirits overhead, she liked him better that way. She looked at him nod at the Queen, there was no sign of happiness on his face, but that meant nothing, he was surely counting the advantages his new house could have.

"Good. With this said, and if nobody has any objections, Clank, Bobble, I'll ask that you accompany him to the dam, where Mary is waiting." The two sparrow men stood up from their sits and escorted James to the exit.

"See you later Zarina!", said Clank. "Bobble, do we have to carry him all the way?"

"You are right, we'll take a cart." And they left.

"Now that that's settled,", said Clarion while taking a sit. "let's move to the next point. Zarina?" The alchemist stood up and, to the three Minister's surprise, she drew her sword and put it on the table.

"This,", said she pointing at the weapon, "is one of the swords I used to have, a weapon with no kind of magic. Normally, a sword such as this shouldn't be able to even make a scratch on the Pixie Dust Tree. But then, this is what happens when you misuse the powers of alchemy." She took the sword and approached a wall. With a quick move that made it seem as if she hadn't stopped practicing with her sword at all, she opened a scar on the wood. The Ministers made a big sound of exclamation. Zarina then took some light red powder and rubbed it on the bark, making the wound disappear. She returned to the table and put the sword on the belt again. "That's why we can't have everyone use the transformation powders as they please. Not only the Great Tree, but all the nature will resent it." The Ministers and the Queen looked at each other and then Hyacinth stood up.

"You'll have to explain it to them if you want all the fairies to understand."

"I agree.", said Redleaf.

"Yes.", added Sunflower. "They may now be revolted, but if you told them everything carefully, I'm sure everybody would comprehend."

"That's why I would like to make a speech to everyone tomorrow, with the help of my fellow alchemists."

"Then you better go prepare that speech, no?", said the Queen with a kind smile. Zarina bowed and then she rapidly exited the room, she could already hear the Sping Minister's complains when she took the stairs that went up to the top of the Tree. When she arrived at the terrace Mina and Glowen were already waiting for her. Lonny and Ria had stayed in the Fabric, so now the three of them had an entire day to plan what were they going to say to explain themselves.


End file.
